[math4] Learning in software

[Kathy Pusztavari]

 I was wondering about how any activity, not just math activities, are using
databases?  Again, a newbie question.

For information on Project Follow Through see:
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adiep/ft/becker.htm (see the graphs)
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adiep/ft/abt.htm
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adiep/ft/grossen.htm

I put a hold on Disrupting Class at my library.  Right now I'm reading Super
Crunchers which actually has a whole chapter on Direct Instruction.  I use
DI simply because it works with my son with autism.  That, and all the
autism behaviorists said the same exact thing: DI curriculum and Precision
Teaching (timed learning).  After about the 20th professional, I thought
"gee, there must be something to this."

Upon using it with my son, I looked around and found that other "typical"
kids were not learning to read, hated math, didn't know their math facts,
and were terrible writers. I finished student teaching typical 4th graders
and used DI to teach pre-algebraic functions.  Nothing fancy but DI breaks
it down so well EVERY SINGLE ONE of the 26 students were able to figure out
function and simple coordinate graphing.  Yet most only knew multiplication
fact up to 3.  I even had some 5th graders in my class.

-Kathy

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Dekoenigsberg [mailto:gdk at redhat.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, March 24, 2009 11:51 AM
To: Kathy Pusztavari
Cc: fourthgrademath at lists.sugarlabs.org
Subject: Re: [math4] Learning in software


On Tue, 24 Mar 2009, Kathy Pusztavari wrote:

> Hi, I'm just curious as to what is motivating people like Greg D. to 
> tackle this.  Do you guys have kids?

Deep personal confession time:

No, I don't have kids, and I am unlikely to ever have them, which is a great
personal disappointment in my life.  And since I won't ever be able to shape
my own children -- then maybe, if I'm very lucky and work hard, I'll have
the opportunity to shape the children of others.

> Also, as a newbie, I'm curious if all the activities will be written 
> in python or is that a foregone conclusion - is everything for sugar 
> written in python?

I think it's an open question.  In one way, Python is the best choice,
because Sugar is strongly tied to it.  On the other hand, there's nothing
wrong with other languages.  What *must* be true: the code, and the
mechanisms to run the code, must be freely redistributable.  Which means no
Flash, for instance.

> And finally, are you writing to flat files or is there some sort of 
> scaled down database in use or to be used?

For which piece?

> Sorry for all the stupid questions. The 2 math activities are great. 
> The way you laid out the state standards and then are tying activities 
> to each is beyond brilliance.

I give all credit to the book "Disrupting Class".  It has fundamentally
changed the way I think.

> One suggestion is that you look at Direct Instruction curriculum 
> (DISTAR Math I/II preschool/K, Connecting Math Concepts A-E for K-4th
grade).
> This will show how skills and concepts are broken down and build up on 
> themselves in a logical sequence of steps.  I only suggest DI stuff 
> (by
> SRA) because it has 1/2 billion dollars of research showing it is 
> effective (see Project Follow Through).

Wow.  We should indeed look at that.  Is there a URL?  Is the data publicly
available?

--g

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