College Remediation Study

Oh yeah, I'm going there.

"Over one third of college students need to take remedial courses — and sometimes courses so basic that they can’t begin their intended majors without them."

The article could also have been headlined "New Report Shows that Colleges are accepting under-qualified students for monetary reasons despite overwhelming evidence that they aren't ready" or possibly "College Admissions Departments admit to a total lack of Ability to Read an SAT score report."

My weakest students score 60% in all of their math classes, score below 400 on each of the sections of the SAT and do not get a recommendation from me. Somehow, amazingly, they're all accepted to some college. "Glory, sing the Angels!"

"High school teachers and administrators are either unaware of what is expected in college, or unable to align their curricula with college prep because the material on standardized tests does not match material colleges are looking for students to know. Colleges also use a variety of placement tests, which adds to the confusion over what students need to know."

On the contrary, we know exactly what it will take and we'll tell them until they're sick of hearing it. Most of us grade appropriately and will give a failing student the failing grade he is demanding -- which is more than I can say for colleges. Every course I've taken recently has been graded on attendance or other wishy-washy bullshit.

If the colleges would simply refuse to enroll unready students, it might actually give us a little bit more help in motivating the rest of the kids to learn more. As it is, college is a guarantee and in some states, a free one.

Bottom line: I will care about college remedials when these weakest students get REJECTED by colleges. If the Admissions department had done the smallest due diligence, none of this would be a surprise.

Until then, shove your hypocrisy where it belongs.

Have a Nice Day.

Wrong on so many levels

They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

List of Fail

• Archamendes
• Carried a box of sand.
• "I believe there is merit ..."
• "Take your students outside to write in the mud."
• This guy is teaching college students.
• Who believes in himself and has his writings for sale.
• Archamendes? Seriously? Google broken? Oh, yeah, I remember, you think that education should be "Just in Time instead of Just in Case."  How's that working out for you?

He scratched in sand because it was available, easy to use and cheap. Papyrus was harder to get and vastly too expensive to scribble on. Don't even consider parchment.  I love the intro ... "It is believed ..."  Sorry genius, it is known. Basically, the man did a lot of thinking in his head, aided by scratching in a sandtable or on the ground (the guy would have loved paper).  There is no "merit in his method" because the sand isn't what made him who he is and the sand won't make your college students any better than they are, though it will probably make them worse.


and his name is Archimedes.


Sheesh.

"Burn The Textbooks, Shred The Worksheets, Teach Math." Yeah right.

Licensing and Voucher Schools

These two sentences jumped out at me.

The violations, which mostly involved instructors teaching the wrong subject or grade level, touched as many as 57,000 students in some 300 public school districts and charter schools across Minnesota, records show. Some years, records show, more than half the classes at some charter schools were taught by unlicensed or improperly licensed teachers.

Those who can, cheat.

This must be a Joke: Disney applies for "Seal Team Six" trademark

Chutspah.

The trademark applications came on May 3rd, two days after the operation that killed Bin Laden… and two days after “Seal Team 6″  was included in thousands of news articles and TV programs focusing on the operation. Disney’s™ trademark applications for “Seal Team 6″ cover clothing, footwear, headwear, toys, games and “entertainment and education services,” among other things. Of course, for all we know Disney has been working on an animated feature about a team of anthropomorphic seals in search of adventure, but given the timing of the application that seems… unlikely.

I am deeply irritated.  I have no problem with capitalism. I have no problem with war-based toys, games, entertainment, though "education services" seems a stretch.

164	85310970		SEAL TEAM 6	TARR	LIVE
165	85310966		SEAL TEAM 6	TARR	LIVE
166	85310957		SEAL TEAM 6	TARR	LIVE

I have a huge problem with this. Looking at the rest of the list, I notice that Disney is hardly alone. Applications for TEAM 6, TEAM VI, and other variations (a lot seem to be from "Jack Tracy"). Patent trolls, all of them.

It's almost enough to convince me that the USPTO should make some drastic changes. Can you imagine if Disney™ somehow received this trademark - I can't imagine they could, but who knows? What gives anyone the right, the chutzpah, the cajones, to think they could trademark the informal unit designation of any branch of this country's military. You could argue that the unit badge is prior art and all that, but doesn't this hit your gut in that place where all deeply disgusting, vile, abhorrent things hit you?

And why? Why would the Happiest Place on Earth™ want to be associated, in any way, with a group of hard men who are the sharp end of America's Sword? Disney™ can't stand it when a bunch of gays want to march down Main Street™ but bloody death is all peachy-keen?

"This takedown and these splattered brains that once belonged to the world's most notorious killers, are brought to you by Seal Team VI™ and the Happy People at Disney™. Visit Our Magic Kingdom™ today."

72 Virginians ...

From Ricochet:

After getting nailed by a crack team of Seals, Osama made his way to the pearly gates. There, he is greeted by George Washington. "How dare you attack the nation I helped conceive!" yells Mr. Washington, slapping Osama in the face.

Patrick Henry comes up from behind. "You wanted to end the Americans' liberty, so they gave you death!" Henry punches Osama on the nose.

James Madison comes up next, and says "This is why I allowed the Federal government to provide for the common defense!" He drops a large weight on Osama's knee.

Osama is subject to similar beatings from John Randolph of Roanoke, James Monroe, and 65 other people who have the same love for liberty and America.

As he writhes on the ground, Thomas Jefferson picks him up to hurl him back toward the gate where he is to be judged.

As Osama awaits his journey to his final very hot destination, he screams "This is not what I was promised!"

An angel replies "I told you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you, idiot. What did you think I said?"

Actively disengaged at Charter Schools

Dangerously Irrelevant, of the blog-group Big Think:
"I love this video. How much of this occurs in your school on a day-to-day basis? What would your kids say?"

I know what my kids would say. "Pretty funny. Cool music (but dated). I could never get away with that unless I was having one of those days and the teacher took pity on me but he'd try to talk me into doing some work to distract me."

What is my reaction? It seems that every classroom depicted was filled with students in uniforms of some kind, or at minimum a strict dress code, which means that they are all charter and private schools. Maybe that's the real problem?

Let's face reality here. The camera is in the classroom. The students are acting. There is nothing "real" about this. Several of the clips are from anime cartoons and others are line drawings! How is this supposed to make the point that education isn't working and that we have to change to the more tech-driven, 21st Century Skills model that Dr. Macleod is always pushing for?

The music selection is likewise flawed. Using Floyd's tune in a video on disengagement is akin to using Goya's "Saturn Devouring His Son" as the basis for a diatribe against Spanish cruelty against the natives of Central America in the 1500s. The song has absolutely nothing to do with student boredom or disengagement, but the creator (and possibly Macleod) are too young to know that.

Clever? Nope.
Critical thinking? Nope.
Makes a good point? Nope.
Sound basis for changing education? Nope.

Selection Bias at KIPP again

It's getting rather repetitive. Lots of people have said it, Jim Horn, for one. It seems as though the journalists aren't listening, or at least are swallowing the bait hook, line and sinker when it comes to the press releases from that grandfather of charter schools, KIPP.

Education News put out this blurb committing that journalistic sin: copy without critical thinking.

As of Fall 2010, 33 percent of students who completed 8th grade at a KIPP middle school ten or more years ago have graduated from a four-year-college. This rate is above the national average (30.6%) and four times the rate for students from low-income families.

It's never been about the money and it certainly isn't about the KIPP program. Socio-economic status is an indicator of educational success not because money is the key factor but because selection is.

What kids are likely to apply to KIPP, suffer through the selection process, stay in KIPP throughout the 8th grade, have the ability to maintain focus under pressure, put up with the incredible stresses and challenges demanded of them, and attend the mandatory summer and Saturday classes? These same traits are a damn good indicator of college success, too.

KIPP isn't the key to their success - it's merely the spotlight that shines on them, taking all the credit for their success while ruthlessly weeding out any child who isn't up to the standard, in much the same way that the average height would increase if you shot all the short people.

Education through academic eugenics.

Teaching Teachers - A Cautionary Tale

Teaching is a great field to be in. Like every job, there are positives and negatives, trials and tribulations, difficulties and successes. Teaching has its stars and its plodders, champions and minions just like every other business. Find the good ones and try to avoid the bad ones.

I just wish so many teachers weren't so damned frustrating.

The tagline for one particular blog is "Burn The Textbooks, Shred The Worksheets, Teach Math," which is a sentiment I can follow, albeit cautiously. There is certainly nothing sacred about a textbook if you are replacing it with superior material, ideas and learning. Some things seemed childish, as if they were geared towards a young audience, but that's all right. I like to see what elementary students are learning, to get a sense of the state of the art in the lower grades, so I kept looking.

This guy, though, strikes me at first glance as a pretentious moron and I find myself wondering how I got to this one in the first place ... whose blogroll contained him? He seems to always be pitching his lesson plans for sale and that rubs me the wrong way. I can forgive if the quality is there, but then he posts this kind of thing (Learning the Number System with Maps) and you wonder ...

Anyway, I threw his blog into Google reader a week or so ago and I think he just earned his way into the joke folder.

My college students were offered extra credit for producing a hands on math project on one of the following themes. 1) The Real Number System 2) The Commutative, Associative or Distributive Properties

And then I looked at the pictures posted with it.

1.	2.	3.
4.	5.

As projects by college students, they are poorly thought out and suffice only as examples of their own math illiteracy. As extra credit, I'd consider them as negative value work in that I'd actually reduce grades for trying to pass this off as worthy of a child's time. If these people are supposed to become teachers, I shudder at the implications for their prospective schools. Do they truly know so little? Is this their best work or merely a toss-off handout meant to glean a couple of points from a gullible and not-too-attentive professor? Does the professor not know the problems?

Now, I understand that I may have misunderstood the purpose of the assignment and that these students may have intentionally written incorrect examples, confusing or obfuscated instructions, or created Venn diagrams and graphic organizers that intentionally make incorrect mathematical points.

Nothing in the post or in the pictures above, however, makes that clear or explains why such dreck is worthy of extra credit, a concept with which I rarely agree.

On its face, extra credit is a silly idea.  Doing something unrelated to fractions in order to improve a grade on fractions seems antithetical to the idea of a grade being a numerical representation of a student's understanding and knowledge. Show me later that you understand this work better than you did the first time and I'll increase your grade on it. Doing something like washing teachers' cars for extra credit is outright bribery -- ethically, it's equivalent to accepting cash.

If anyone reading this is a teacher prospect and is wondering what I find so problematic about the above images, let me be clear that I am making these comments without knowing any more than the post and the images.

1. The butterfly graphic organizer bothers me. Before creating this, the teacher must be clear in his mind exactly what color, shape, represents what type of number and know the definitions of each. If a rational number, $\sqrt{100}$ is placed in a green region as are the irrationals like $\sqrt{19}$, students will assume that irrationality is exclusively determined by a square root. Does the teacher candidate not realize that 10 is rational.  Secondly, if there are no irrationals without radicals, will the viewer understand the nature of π or φ? If the teacher does not know himself ...

By my count, 5 of the greens are rational but I may not have found them all. Finding them would make a good lesson but it's one that seems to have been lost on the constructor.

2. This one is just odd. The instructions are unclear: "Do not feed the alligators unless the #'s are the greatest."  Why superlative rather than comparative? Why state this as "Do Not ... Unless"? Are there too many other options to list?

How about "The alligator eats the larger number"?   Maybe "The point is small and the other end is large so it points to the smaller number"?

I have no idea what "Order Property" means or why "Food" is listed on strips.  Where are we going with that? Is the top list greater than the smaller list? Is every element of the first list being compared to those in the second list or is it intended to mean that place in the list matters? If this is truly a lesson for children, then we have to assume that the children are having trouble with the concept - this does nothing to simplify it.

3. First, the picture is of the associative property.

Second, the story is ridiculous and has nothing to do with either mathematical property.

Third, a child who is reading something written in this font style should be focused on the idea of the property without bothering with the name of it.

Fourth, stop pretending that a child wrote this.

4. A nice idea, but flawed in the execution.  Start with the map of the world.  Irrational numbers are Australia and rational numbers are the USA ... that's pretty goddam funny and possibly backwards, but who's making a GOP joke? Me, actually. What's the rest of the world?  If it's not rational, it's irrational by definition. To make this work, the USA would be rational and the rest of the world irrational and I can't stop giggling at that either.

The USA is divided up in a better fashion in that there are vastly more non-integral rational numbers than integers but I doubt that the designer knows that.

The Virginia split? Apparently the whole numbers are just Frederick County meaning the rest of the state is negative integers. Seems unbalanced somehow since, other than zero, there are equally many positive as negative integers, but that's a nitpick.

Speaking of zero, if the Town of Winchester is the Natural numbers and Frederick is the Whole numbers, then what does that say about the rest of the county? Yup, it's the zero.

I know, I know. Area shouldn't matter in a graphic organizer but when you use a visual that explicitly has such a meaning then the reader will make the wrong inferences based on those meanings.

5. What can I say? 75% of the examples are wrong and 75% is less than 100% but that's no reassurance either because 100% wrong is a lesser problem than 75% wrong because the former is a misunderstanding of the notation and easily solved, but the latter shows both a misunderstanding and a mistake based on that misunderstanding.

2 is less than 1? No shit.

Forget the "Feeding Instructions." Could someone please explain what "Please put food of the lower number into its mouth" is supposed to mean, because my English skills are lacking and my mathematical side seems to remember it the other way around. The only correct problem listed, 5 < 6, along with the improper instructions, gives me the distinct impression that the last example was actually a double negative.

Oh well, the South won the Civil War, too.
God Bless Virginia.

Saturday Puzzle

Just thought I'd create the graphic for jd2718's question. The source of the puzzle is unknown to me but I'm sure that I've seen it before. The problem is simple ... given a square of side 1 and four circles each of radius 1 centered at the four corners of the square, what is the area of the "rounded square" in the middle?

For what it's worth, I got $1-\sqrt{3}-\frac{\pi}{3}$, but I can't follow all my scribbling to check it. Too much thinking for a Saturday afternoon.

That's WYCDWT - Speeding Tickets

"For each ticket, Mr. Foreman digitally superimposed the two photos - taken 0.363 seconds apart from a stationary point, according to an Optotraffic time stamp - creating a single photo with two images of the vehicle. Using the vehicle’s length as a frame of reference, Mr. Foreman then measured its distance traveled in the elapsed time, allowing him to calculate the vehicle’s speed. In every case, he said, the vehicle was not traveling fast enough to get a ticket."

Judges agreed.  Booyah.

But it's okay, right? Starburst Candy Wrapper Prom Dress.

The Inverted Classroom

Robert Talbot
Casting Out Nines

People are talking about it here, and here. This is Robert Talbot, the first person I heard about it from. Here are some of his other articles. Let me throw out a few thoughts and attempt to nail down what I think. ("essay" from Fr. "Essayer", to try.) I'd love to hear what all of y'all have to say, too.

Essentially, Talbot (a university math professor) is reversing the order of his teaching.  He makes a video of his lecture which students are required to watch before class. Class time is then used for doing "homework" and practice, etc.  The theory is that lecture is very one-directional anyway (basically a video) and the students don't do well in lectures, so put the video online and have the kids do that portion of the class themselves. They can rewind, fast forward, review, whatever.  Then class time is reserved for face-to-face tutoring, direct and targeted instruction. Differentiated, if you will.

I'm ambivalent about this for high school. It sounds great in theory but so many great educational theories only work with college students or other adults who have different time pressures and levels of responsibility from the ones in front of me.

Some thoughts that occur to me are

Can 9th grade students learn this way? I'm not convinced. I think education at this level is more than just watching videos (and certainly NOT a lecture) and I'm not sure that the limited amount of time in the classroom the next day will suffice for re-teaching missed concepts or for correcting misunderstandings ... but they can watch the video over and over again, stop it and think. Listen to it again.  There are misunderstandings now and lots of time that homework would have gone much more smoothly with me to help. ("but my father said THIS was the way to do it.")

Really?  Students teach themselves? What am I here for? To teach the students.  They'll get more personalized attention the next day when you are working through the homework with them.

What about time? The college professors who have tried this are dealing with people who come to class every other day, people who have much more control over their lives, who can drive. I remember my college schedule: three to fours hours of class a day and then lots of free time to do this kind of thing. The expectation was one hour in class for every two hours outside of class. I can't see high school students ever fitting this pattern. When my son learned to drive, it immediately freed up a tremendous amount of time for him and for us. That's one huge difference - the amount of "loose time" and non-structured time. Time they can use to go to Office Hours. Our kids aren't allowed to come during free time, can't stay in the building without a teacher, can't meet at off times. But shouldn't they be developing that sense of responsibility? It's simple to require homework and any parent who won't support that shouldn't be surprised if the kid doesn't learn. We don't even allow them to go to Subway for lunch. that's my reality.

I can see a parent getting really annoyed that his daughter needs to use the living room TV every night for 45 minutes per class. I can also see that daughter being embarrassed to ask or simply giving in to the family's "American Idol" viewing habit. See previous comment.

My computer ate my homework.

The technological side bothers me too. Too many possible home configurations, IT issues. I had one set of parents tell me that they couldn't get their son to do a PowerPoint (I'd have accepted Keynote or Google apps, too) because their computer had a problem. For two months. True or not, it was out of my control - that kid would have had no instruction for two months. That kid had plenty of time to do the assignment, had plenty of resources with which to do it (town library, after-school, during class).  What he lacked was the desire. This will clarify matters.  Watch the video or fail.

An issue here in Vermont that the rest of the world hasn't had to deal with for a while is lack of broadband; probably a third of my students can't even get cellphone access at home. Poverty dictates that the school can't require certain things.  Require it and make it work. If there is a student who legitimately cannot, then deal with that issue at that point. Most complaints of this type are bogus. The real-world isn't stopping to wait. Lend him a computer, use a DVD, make a vidcast for the iPod the kid is carrying.

If they don't get the video done, what happens? I assume you'd let them watch it during class? What about the homework then? Does that kid get to re-invert the classroom because he simply won't cooperate? No. The classroom stays inverted.  If he refuses to do his assigned work, then that is the same as refusing to do homework.  If he refuses, he won't learn. If he doesn't learn, he'll fail. That seems a little draconian, but the students will rise to the level of your expectations.

Or not. The parents will bitch, the principal will be called and I'll be told to change. A lawsuit will be threatened. Hell, they do that anyway. Remember that kid and the PowerPoint? Give him some more time, during class, to get the work done.  That's the whole point of this - class time should be for working with a student, not talking at him.

What if YOU don't get the video done?  Well, shit.  You'd better prepare at least two weeks in advance, or just do the whole course over this coming summer.  No more of your "I've been doing this for years, let's just wing it today" bullshit.

Will students who play a sport or have another obligation get progressively farther behind? I can see them doing math problems on the bus (or on the bleachers while they wait for the JV game to finish) but not being able to do much more than placidly listen to a DVD (or podcast). Learning something new from scratch needs focused attention. Doing homework needs focused attention, too.  Would you rather they zoned out while listening to you in class, or zoned out while listening to you on their computer?  It might give them more responsibility because they know they have to get it done.  Slacking off has no upside. And you can help them with the more important part of learning, the reinforcement.

New isn't always better. Old isn't always better, either.

Crap. What about the time needed? In any recording endeavor, the time to create is at least four - six times the running time. You plan, record, re-record, mix, edit, review.  In the middle of October, that pile of whatever that needs grading is not going to go away and you've got videos to make and these videos can't wait. You don't have the "research" time that Talbot does. He has 3 hours of class a day, you have 6. He has lot more free time and "office hours" than you do. Once created, they stay created.  Sure, you can be replaced next year with a much cheaper TFA teacher and we'll still show your videos, but that's the risk we all take. Did I mention that all of your work is now the property of the school, that you cannot resell it or even give it away for free? Take it off YouTube. It legally belongs to the district because you created it on school time. Thanks for your effort. Now we can give a teacher 60 kids per class and a couple of cheap aides because all the learning has been done by video. Any non-learning will still be your fault. Aren't you thrilled?

Well.  It was a nice discussion.

I think that I will take the safe route this year and wait for other people who have met AYP to do the research. In the meantime, I'll put a few videos online, increase the use of the Moodle, but keep the traditional format for now.

You can't have "improvement"
if you haven't got any data.

Changing seems too much of a crapshoot to me at this point. The most important piece to all this, and one that I'm afraid will be overlooked by almost everyone, is data. I haven't seen anything other than Talbot's anecdotal information to say this works at the high school level.  I am not willing to go through the tremendous amount of time and effort required to change over without something more than pleasant stories.

We have enough trouble in this country with educational fads. An option that MIGHT work? I have seen lots of stupendous, wonderful, groundbreaking ideas come roaring in like lions and then go slinking out embarrassed like a wet toy poodle. The money spent in the meantime is obscene.


Data Questions:

Better bone up.

1. What is your baseline? Have you got someway to measure the effectiveness of the current system before you throw it away?
2. What kind of data will convince you that this works - or doesn't?  You must develop some way to tell if this was effective or if the teacher was effective, or both, or neither.  If you can figure that out, you can sell the idea to New York.
3. When will you decide? You have to nail this point down or run the risk of picking your goalposts to suit a preconceived notion.
4. Is this tent therapy?* Are the gains simply a matter of improved attention on the teacher's part, working harder, being better because you're paying attention for the first time in a while? Is the different format making a difference or is it simply that you've made a change?  Will these gains diminish next year when the kids get used to the new method? If this goes well, will you be able to prove it?
5. Control group? Can students transfer to another class if they really don't like it? How flexible is your school? If you truly want to make this a controlled experiment - and you should - you should do it with only half of your classes and refuse to let the kids switch around.

These questions need to be answered FIRST or you are committing Egregious Research Error #1.  There's been enough of THAT already. Now for the important questions:

1. Will your principal back you up? College professor Talbot has a great deal of professional freedom. If this hits a stubborn kid or obnoxious parent in October, how much influence will be enough to shut this down? (Is 'obnoxious parent' an oxymoron or a regular moron?)
2. Do you have tenure? Is your union willing to stand by you? Do you still have a union?
3. Do you need this job? If the answer is "Yes." then you need to consider whether to take this chance. I know what the current method does. 
4. Do you have the resources to pull this off? Technology, website, bandwidth. Since you're going to be doing some of this from home, how's your home computer?
5. Do you have the time? Better start recording the lessons now.

* Tent therapy was a short-lived psychological treatment fad from early twentieth century. Patients who were brought outside and placed in tents on the lawn of the insane asylum showed improvement. In reality, the improvement came not from the tents or the fresh air but from the increased attention the staff was giving to the patients. As soon as routine settled in, the improvements disappeared.

Math Reform: Games, Practice and Psuedocontext

More interesting to students.
Probably not good at being a teacher.

Dan Meyer found Mathematics v. MTV by H. Wells Wulsin in this month's Stanford Sound Off. H. Wells, a former physics and chemistry teacher at a Washington DC private school, is making the case that math software (and by extension, teachers) must change because of competition with MTV for the eyeballs of our students. Which is kinda amusing, since none of my students watches MTV for more than a tiny percent of their information-absorbing time. Facebook, iPod, games, texting, Facebook, YouTube, cellphone, texting. The TV might be tuned to MTV in the background, but more likely it's on Spongebob.

Anyway, he does have a point when he says, "Mathematics educators now vie with a multitude of digital entertainment options to capture adolescents’ interest." "To compete more aggressively for students’ attention, mathematics software should adopt the very strategies that have made these other media so successful."

An issue I have is when he says, in the next breath, "Research shows that mathematics software can boost student learning, but these programs remain unpopular."  That's because software isn't always the answer. Teachers are primarily involved with new learning. New learning is rarely successful in a computer-learning environment because it usually needs an human explanation. If students could do this alone, you'd see a lot more kids taking summer classes online and getting credits. Repeat learning can be successful online (or by computer training) because the kids already know what the goal is, already have been taught the concept but just need repetition and practice.

The upshot of all of this?  You probably have done as much of this guy's ideas as is workable.

Back to our expert ... Wulsin offers recommendations that sound good in theory:

Presenting examples in high-resolution video. "Video lets students watch the sweat beading on the athlete’s temples, see the whoosh of wind in the skydiver’s hair, hear the rev of the daredevil’s motorcycle. A photograph or cartoon cannot beat video in its fidelity and power to captivate."

Connecting to students' interests. "Monitoring a breeding bunny population would show the process of exponential growth. Baseball batting averages could introduce percentages."

Showing appealing faces. "These videos could occasionally feature famous sports or entertainment figures. What if Michael Phelps calculated the volume of an Olympic swimming pool or Beyoncé computed the time delay needed for speakers at an outdoor concert? Why not let Danica Patrick figure the monthly payment on an auto loan?"

Holding students' attention. "Make students laugh through physical comedy or corny one-liners. Introduce them to interesting people with magnetic personalities."

Sounds good. Misses the point.

To engage learning, what you need is a good question that arises out of context, asked in a way that makes sense, posed by someone who actually needs to know the answer.  While I hate to push the button marked “Praise Dan” too often, I do think that he has given us a shorthand for much of this … pseudocontext … and the suggestions fail because of it.

Show appealing Faces

“What if Michael Phelps calculated the volume of an Olympic swimming pool”

Really? When would Michael ever care? On the other hand, he might be interested in split times and speeds and the differential changes made by a new type of suit with a 5% slicker surface. Build your question from that and you'll have the class hooked. Bring in data from your pool at home and calculate the chlorine percentage. How many tabs go into this pool? In my case, it was the number of bottles of medicine I needed to add to a fishpond.

“or Beyoncé computed the time delay needed for speakers at an outdoor concert?”

Don’t make me laugh. Beyoncé’s job is to sing. When the hall was built, someone cared. Once. Then the problem was solved and everyone moved on. The audio engineer needed to know when she placed the venue's sound system. The designer needed to know where to put the reflecting panels. But not Beyonce.

And the silliest one of all: “Why not let Danica Patrick figure the monthly payment on an auto loan?”

Because she cares even less than your students do and they know it.

In a sport like NASCAR, which is run using computers, analyzed to death with computers, which has something like 200 different sensors on the cars taking measurements every 1/300th of a second generating GBs of data which is endlessly broken down before, during and after the race … and all we get is a suggestion that Danica figure the monthly payment of an auto loan? Lame. (BTW, amortization schedules? Even bankers and loan officers run freely available spreadsheet tools.)

How about spring displacement, fore and aft g-loading, pressure, O2 vs Temperature, wing downforce? Suspension settings, pitch attitude, adjusting control parameters, understeer, optimize torque during power down? Why not do this? Probably because it's more information than your kids can handle, that's why.

Going too far into the real-world is not only confusing, it's counter-productive. You spend way too much time explaining something that winds up being taken on faith rather than being understood and the math you wanted them to get is lost in the descriptions of the curve of the wheel-wells. The jargon of the job overwhelms them. I love the concert hall question but you'd have to remove a lot before it became an algebra I question.

The other suggestions are interesting but not very particularly useful. Rabbit populations are not exponential (more sinusoidal) and not very relevant to the kids unless you have a fur farm nearby, in which case you'll start up the PETA alarmists instead of the graph-makers. Fibonacci was just doing a thought experiment anyway - in practice, the numbers are fairly complicated unless none of the rabbits ever dies and they all have 2 kits per litter.

If you want to model things, you need to pick the model carefully or the idea will disappear in the myriad details. If the relationship is supposed to be linear, stay away from the exponential data, and vice-versa. If you pick a real-world problem, you need to make sure that it will work out as you expect.

Appeal to Kids' Interests

Mindlessly connecting to kid's interests is a bad idea for a couple reasons.

One, the kids aren't interested in things that are mathematical right now. They are social beings and putting them in a social situation but wanting them to be mathematical is a frustrating and pointless exercise akin to moving Mt. Fuji with a spoon.

Two, which kid's interests? Baseball and softball overlap, but the goth kid is in his anti-jock mode and deliberately tunes you out for trying and nobody can understand the Valley Girl accent you're attempting.

Baseball batting averages are great for introducing percentages. Once. After that, only baseball freaks care and only if it's "their guy." The other 96% of the class is totally bored. If the entire software package is developed around baseball, I'd scream, too.

Third, How do you Know? If a kid is interested in something that you know little about, you risk looking foolish and stupid -- which doesn't achieve the goal you are trying for. Your "real-world" question is obviously contrived and tedious. This is why the "psuedocontext" questions in the book are so discordant. They aren't written by real people.

This may be hard to believe, but kids are okay with just learning something mathematical. Raw, pure math. Give them this just before they really are going to use it for a question THAT INTERESTS YOU and you'll have succeeded.  Forget their interests. "What use do YOU make of it" would be a better idea.

Finally, kids change. MTV is so last week. If you base your software on what was current just ten years ago, 95% of their world wouldn't exist. Are they interested in Spongebob or iCarly or Jimmy Neutron? Kid fads go out of style way too fast to try and keep up and there is nothing so dated as a teacher (or a computer tutor) trying to achieve "relevance."

Use Hi-Res Video

Hi-res video is valuable except when it’s not. The video has to show a problem. If it shows the sweat, blood and tears without a problem, then there is no point. Better to use a still picture that does than a video that doesn’t.

Make Students laugh

Making students laugh with corny one-liners that come out of nowhere only leads you nowhere. The jokes can be bad and yet still effective if they have context … like the joke that always comes up during discussion of integral of 1/x:

What’s the integral of $ \int \frac{dCABIN}{CABIN}$ ?
ln(cabin), of course. ("natural log cabin")
and when you add “C”, you get houseboat. (Better when you say it aloud.)

In the end

In the end, for me, it comes down to:
Get Real: real math, real problems.