http://blogs.standardsco.com/wpmu/jwalkup Standards and Rigor Sat, 06 Mar 2010 03:00:53 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I recently reviewed the draft for the national common core mathematics standards.  Precision and accuracy form concepts that interest me on a regular basis, so the common core standards lit me up when I read: "They [students] recognize that when someone says the population of the United States in June 2008 ... http://blogs.standardsco.com/wpmu/jwalkup/2009/11/06/accuracy-vs-precision-in-the-common-core-standards/ In a recent blog, I discussed a model for improving the odds that talented students of physics and chemistry will choose to teach at the public school level.  This plan focused on improving the pedagogical skill of laboratory teaching assistants. I want to discuss this plan from a new angle ... http://blogs.standardsco.com/wpmu/jwalkup/2009/10/24/more-views-on-improving-collegiate-teaching/ I recently participated in The Renaissance Group's annual conference in Washington DC. The Renaissance Group is a collection of colleges and universities that feature high-quality teacher preparation programs. The goal of The Renaissance Group is to elevate public awareness of the need for good K-12 teacher training and to instill ... http://blogs.standardsco.com/wpmu/jwalkup/2009/10/11/we-need-more-science-teachers-a-proposed-solution/ Our company released the Community Edition of its Sapphire classroom observation software for free download a few months ago. Since then, administrators have been downloading the software and using it in their classrooms.  I want to take this time to explain why the feedback provided by Sapphire can enhance data-driven ... http://blogs.standardsco.com/wpmu/jwalkup/2009/06/13/sapphire-timeline/ Calling on random non-volunteers to answer in-class questions is becoming increasingly popular, with many teachers using numbered Popsicle sticks or playing cards to select students. Calling on random non-volunteers effectively engages all students on academic content, holds all students accountable for learning, and provides a more accurate barometer of teaching ... http://blogs.standardsco.com/wpmu/jwalkup/2009/04/08/maintaining-engagement-when-calling-on-volunteers/ When The Standards Company LLC provides reports on the state of the enacted curriculum, it is always careful to avoid stating unwarranted personal judgments. Instead, educational agencies should judge the results of educational research for themselves with respect to their own goals. In what follows, I will describe one reason ... http://blogs.standardsco.com/wpmu/jwalkup/2009/02/11/should-students-be-taught-on-grade-level/ Technical writing has long interested me. When I taught physics at Cal Poly, Melody DeMeritt (a member of the English Department faculty) and I co-facilitated a writing workshop as part of the university's WinGED (Writing in General Education) program.  I not sure who, but someone introduced me to the writing ... http://blogs.standardsco.com/wpmu/jwalkup/2009/01/31/writing-research-reports-in-e-prime/ I am becoming more involved in the California Mathematics Council (http://www.cmc-math.org/) and recently presented at both the South and North division conferences. The South conference was hosted in Palm Springs and I took my daughter with me.  She had been begging to see her favorite metal band Turisas and they were ... http://blogs.standardsco.com/wpmu/jwalkup/2009/01/12/cmc-presentations-for-2008/ Lately I have been reading an article by Andrew Ho in the journal Educational Researcher titled "The problem with `proficiency': limitations of statistics and policy under No Child Left Behind." It is a worthwhile article and I encourage others (hint: employees of The Standards Company) to read it. Briefly, Ho ... http://blogs.standardsco.com/wpmu/jwalkup/2009/01/10/sensitivity-analysis-of-student-proficiency/ I made big gains in my understanding of XSLT. One of my biggest stumbling blocks was how to reference bibliography entries cited in one document that referred to a bibliography file. For example, if one had the following LaTeX file main.tex % main.tex I am citing Andrew Porter\cite{Porter2004} and Norman ... http://blogs.standardsco.com/wpmu/jwalkup/2009/01/10/bibliographies-in-xslt/