Outsourcing our Thinking to Algorithms and Those Who Engi...

...even as an algorithm mindlessly implements its procedures – and even as it learns to see new patterns in the data – it reflects the minds of its creators, the motives of its trainers. Amazon and Netflix use algorithms to make recommendations about books and films. (One-third of purchases on Amazon come from these recommendations.) These algorithms seek to understand our tastes, and the tastes of like-minded consumers of culture. Yet the algorithms make fundamentally different recommend...

 Keeping Students Motivated Using Future Rewards

Periodically remind students that their mental effort is relevant to pleasure in the near future. The younger the children, the less tolerant their brains are to activities that are not pleasurable now or expected to be so in the very near future. Fortunately, the dopamine-reward network releases motivating dopamine in expectation of pleasure. Let students know which of their enjoyable math activities will be coming up during the lesson and how what they are practicing now connects to the des...

 Learning Strengths: Map Readers and Explorers

I recognize Map Readers because they often like to work independently, but they are most comfortable when they have specifi c instructions or procedures to follow. Th ey often take more time and work deliberately, showing all their steps on homework or taking detailed notes in class or during group work. Explorers are the students who want to skip the detailed instructions and jump right into fi guring things out by trial and error. Th ese students are not likely to use estimation, even when ...

 RPG as Cooperative Experience

A role-playing game is a cooperative experience between multiple participants. At its simplest, it can be described as an organized form of group make-believe, with a set of rules and procedures to keep things consistent and fair. The goal is not to win - there are no real "winners" in a role-playing game - but simply to have a good time.

 vMemes

  PURPLE (B-O) thinking works on emotion, security, rituals, tokens, sense of belonging (my family, my friends, my workplace) and is very responsive to peer and family pressures RED (C-P) thinking is assertive (aggressive!), energetic, powerful, indulgent, self-centred and wants to dominate/be the best BLUE (D-Q) thinking is concerned with procedures, routines, order, quality, the correct way of doing things, is highly responsive to the 'correct' higher authority and punishes 'sinners...

 Five Strands of Mathematical Literacy

Recognizing that no term captures completely all aspects of expertise, competence, knowledge, and facility in mathematics, we have chosen mathematical proficiency to capture what we think it means for anyone to learn mathematicssuccessfully. Mathematical proficiency, as we see it, has five strands: • conceptual understanding—comprehension of mathematical concepts, operations, and relations • procedural fluency—skill in carrying out procedures flexibly, accurately, efficiently, and a...