MyGreatKid.com » Math

Reform Math Education By Making It Real

Steve — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 21:19:02 +0000

“We want people that can feel the Math ….”

Use computers to make MATH education work, come alive and dramatically change the way our kids see Math in the real world…

And while we’re at it …… why stop with just Math? Think of how many other subjects we could revolutionize by embracing, instead of running away from technology in the classroom.

MGK Radio: Disrupting Class Author Michael Horn

Steve — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:03:50 +0000

Which classroom would you prefer?

This one ….

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or this one …

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In Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns (and in our interview with him), co-author Michael Horn argues (amongst other things) that student-centric classrooms are not only the way most children would prefer to learn but also the more effective way for most of them to be taught.

While teacher centric classrooms may have made sense at one point in time (though that’s debatable too) in today’s modern world, with it’s modern tools and modern expectations for it’s graduates student-centric is the better …. perhaps vastly better …. route to go.

Or so argues folks like Mr. Horn (and we agree).

A lightweight book on education reform this is not. It’s not just arguing for change but for big, ground shaking “disruptive” change. However let’s face it, when you look at where our education system is today……. we need big, disruptive change.

Great book and an informative, far reaching interview!

***************

Some of the many, strongly favorable reviews for the book (I’m sure they’d have similar things to say about the interview with Mr. Horn too) …..

Selected as one of the “Best Books on Innovation, 2008″ by BusinessWeek magazine

Named the “Best Human-Capital Book of 2008″ by Strategy + Business magazine

A crash course in the business of learning…

“Provocatively titled, Disrupting Class is just what America’s K-12 education system needs–a well thought-through proposal for using technology to better serve students and bring our schools into the 21st Century. Unlike so many education ‘reforms,’ this is not small-bore stuff. For that reason alone, it’s likely to be resisted by defenders of the status quo, even though it’s necessary and right for our kids.
We owe it to them to make sure this book isn’t merely a terrific read; it must become a blueprint for educational transformation.”
–Joel Klein, Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education

“A brilliant teacher …… brings clarity to a muddled and chaotic world of education.”
–Jim Collins, bestselling author of Good to Great

MICHAEL B. HORN: Michael B. Horn is the co-founder and Executive Director, Education of Innosight Institute (www.innosightinstitute.org), a non-profit think tank devoted to applying the theory of disruptive innovation to develop solutions to problems in the social sector. A graduate of Harvard Business School, he contributed research for Barbara Kellerman’s 2004 release, Bad Leadership: What It Is, How It Happens, Why It Matters, and Charles Ellis’ book, Joe Wilson and the Creation of Xerox. Horn has been the featured speaker at numerous education conferences, including the National Evaluation Systems’ conference and the Grantmakers for Education Conference. Prior to business school, he worked in the world of politics and public policy, as he served as David Gergen’s research assistant. Horn graduated from Yale University with distinction in History.

Edutopia Article – Disrupting Class: Student-Centric Education Is The Future

Virtual Schools That We Discussed During The Show

The mess in DPS schools that we discussed during the show – the battle over the school board president who can’t write…….

Don’t Indulge DPS Mismatch – Stephen Henderson, Detroit Free Press Columnist
Does DPS Leader’s Writing Send Wrong Message? – Laura Berman, Detroit News Columnist

You Missed A Show? Quick, Get Caught Up!

Steve — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:31:15 +0000

You Missed A Show?

Missed a show? How could you?

Okay, besides you have a family and the show is on early Sunday mornings.

Then here’s your chance to catch up. I’ll be posting full breakouts of all the shows we did in 2009 but in the meantime check out any of the shows that you might have missed below:

Many (and soon) all off these shows can also be downloaded at Itunes in the Podcast section under “My Great Kid”.

Thank you for listening to the show and following this blog and please let us know if there are any topics, or guests, you would like us to speak to in the future.

My Great Kid Radio: Mental Math w/ Arthur Benjamin

Steve — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:01:57 +0000

This week we interviewed Dr. Arthur Benjamin – a Mathematician and Mathemagician. Now normally ….. Math would not be the kind of topic I would want to spend a lot of time talking about. So let me explain why I chose to pick this as a topic and Dr. Benjamin as our expert for the week.

Click here to listen to the interview.

Really, after about the 3rd Grade, Math and I never got along very well. While there were times when it clicked and I would find it really fun and fascinating …. those times were very rare and easily offset by the times I’d have that unpleasant academic drowning feeling. I remember swearing off Math countless times in High School as I brain strained through another seemingly pointless homework assignment or test. My main question most of the time was …. “When the heck (okay, I didn’t always say heck) am I ever going to use this stuff in real life?”. I realized at a pretty young age I wasn’t going to be an engineer or rocket scientist so I figured once you get past the basic math stuff …. why bother?

Besides I had a calculator and computers are all over so anything that I needed to have answered could probably be found somewhere. Unfortunately, my negative experiences with Math at a younger age kind of soured (or actually, it was more like my “math confidence” was smashed) to Math as I got older. Not unlike, I’m sure, a lot of you reading this right now I just figured that I “wasn’t a Math person” and figured life would go on easily enough with that reality.

The problem is of course that Math is everywhere – though it doesn’t always look the same as it did in my post lunch Algebra class. Statistics, probability, percentages and all the stuff we hear about on the news is easy to manipulate precisely because so few people understand or bother to do the Math. Once I had a child I realized that much of this stuff had a much greater importance than I had at first allowed room for years ago. I don’t like being lied to or swayed by the latest report but quickly realized when you start diving into the numbers there’s some Math education that would have been helpful. I couldn’t help but wonder why so much of my Math classes seemed to be focusing on finding “x” in problem, after monotonous problem (screw X – why does he keep getting lost) when if we would have been figuring out real stats and percentages, etc. in a real world context (can anyone same gambling?) it would have probably kept my attention longer.

So anyway, my son started having a bit of trouble with Math and I was having a hard time breaking out all of his test scores / bell curve scoring / standardized testing scores / etc. (hey my kid is 75 percentile – that’s a C, right?)

Even if you’ve sworn off Math and have no interest in EVER having

someone talk Math to you again ….. trust me, you’ll want to watch this video. IT IS AMAZING….

Arthur Benjamin does “Mathemagic”