[math4] FourthGradeMath Digest, Vol 2, Issue 19

[Greg Dekoenigsberg]

On Mon, 16 Mar 2009, Richard Holden wrote:

> I think rapid failure is a good thing, but I think failure also needs to 
> be looked at closely to make sure we are not marking something a failure 
> because it doesn't work for a certain learning style and maybe missing 
> the one or two children that it would help in the long run.

Absolutely.

One thing about this: I favor the idea of "the tool that does the job," 
rather than the "one-size-fits-all" tool.  If a given tool fails to reach 
a certain set of kids, the lesson may not be "let us change this tool," 
but maybe "let us leave this tool, but fork it to create a similar tool 
that works better for another set of kids."

> If we're not too old I'm sure our 4th grade teachers would love to see 
> us again, or if you have children of your own talk to the teachers at 
> their school, they may not have time to jump on the mailing list and be 
> a solid resource but most teachers would love to explain how they do 
> their job, especially when you're not trying to tell them they do it 
> wrong.

The thing I'm looking for, specifically, is teachers who are willing to 
sit down with developers, share their ideas up front to give developers a 
direction to move towards, and then who will commit to playing with the 
resultant activities as they take shape.

I think Caroline is right: aiming for small teams of, say, 4 developers 
and 2 teachers, meeting every few weeks, is a great model that we should 
look to enable.

--g

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