The Post On That Reading Comprehension Study Is Good (and Reminded Me Of Some Of My Complaints About

The post on that reading comprehension study is good (and reminded me of some of my complaints about GPT a couple years ago, although the LLMs have gotten much better since then).

But the thing that really stood out to me is that I feel much this same way about math instruction:

i have seen this repeatedly, too - actually i was particularly taken with how similar this is to the behavior of struggling readers at much younger ages - and would summarize the hypothesis i have forged over time as: struggling readers do not expect what they read to make sense. my hypothesis for why this is the case is that their reading deficits were not attended to or remediated adequately early enough, and so, in their formative years - the early to mid elementary grades - they spent a lot of time "reading" things that did not make sense to them - in fact they spent much more time doing this than they ever did reading things that did make sense to them - and so they did not internalize a meaningful subjective sense of what it feels like to actually read things.

One of the big problems I have primarily in Calculus 1 (which is the lowest-level course I've taught) is that students just don't expect math to make sense. There's a bunch of rules to follow, which you have to memorize, and then you look at an expression and use some rule that seems like you could use it.

But that's not how competent mathematicians (and I use that word in the broadest possible sense) interact with mathematics. Mathematical formulas mean things. They have syntax, and semantics, and you can break apart a computation and talk about what individual terms mean and are doing, and what manipulation you're doing and what that corresponds to.

(Sometimes, of course, that's easier than others. Calc 2, in particular, involves a lot of "tricks" where it's hard to explain the logic in the middle of using them. But that's why I'm focusing on Calc 1 here, which is mostly not like that but does have a lot of application-y problems where this semantic understanding is important.)

But if you've never worked through a math problem and felt like everything was meaningful, you don't expect meaning in what you're doing, and you don't expect your own work to make sense. And then, well, it won't, and you'll struggle and get lost in the middle of every problem.

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roebert

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I got the Top 4.47% on this English Vocabulary test

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roebert

1 month ago

dandelions deserve more respect than they get

you say “weeds” I say “widespread non-native edible plant and early-blooming pollinator resource that is not considered invasive because it behaves politely and does not cause deleterious ecological consequences”

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LOVE dandelions Planted 2 different types in doris' viv because they're so pretty (and she needs vegetation)

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roebert

1 week ago

in the uk, you need to have lived and worked in the country for 5 years under a work visa to apply for "indefinite leave to remain" (i.e. permanent residency). keir starmer's labour government plans to increase that requirement to 10 years.

indefinite leave to remain is a prerequisite for british citizenship. only citizens are allowed to vote in any election.

if you're in the uk on a work visa and you're fired or laid off, you have 60 days to find a new job with a company that can sponsor your visa. if you can't find a new job, you need to leave the country before your 60 days are up.

if you have to leave the country and come back later on a new work visa, none of the time on your previous work visa counts toward any application for indefinite leave to remain. the clock resets to zero.

so what you have here is a segment of the population who risk deportation if they lose their jobs for any reason--meaning it can be very dangerous to raise issues about their working conditions--and who may end up working and paying taxes in the uk for decades without basic citizens' rights, i.e. the ability to vote and have their interests represented by those who govern them.

and the real kicker is that the government keeps telling us they're going to fix the problem of modern slavery.

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roebert

5 days ago

1929 c. Beaded silk dress by New York City designer Sadie Nemser. From Awesome Attic, FB.

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roebert

1 week ago

TRAINA-NORELL MINK TRIMMED CHIFFON GOWN, 1948.

Long sleeve green silk with V-neck and back edged in brown mink, ruched midriff band and full skirt, neck having chiffon over nude insert and large cloth flower.

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roebert

7 months ago

First - Genesis 1:5 "and the evening and the morning were the first day" Anon - Matthew 13:20 "But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it" Hate - Genesis 24:60 "And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them."

By - Genesis 7:2 "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female." Price - Leviticus 25:16 "According to the multitude of years thou shalt increase the price thereof, and according to the fewness of years thou shalt diminish the price of it: for according to the number of the years of the fruits doth he sell unto thee."

Baby's first Anon hate by fisher price

I don't think any of those words are in the bible

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roebert

6 days ago

while you were studying the blade, i was studying the common flowering trees and shrubs of the eastern deciduous forest. i think maybe we could combine this knowledge somehow

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roebert

8 months ago