Comments for Steve Bolton a.k.a. Sirtib http://www.stevebolton.net Wine, song, and less important things. Mon, 07 Nov 2011 08:48:51 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Comment on Information Gap in Maths by Erik Hoekstra http://www.stevebolton.net/?p=512&cpage=1#comment-1974 Erik Hoekstra Mon, 07 Nov 2011 08:48:51 +0000 http://www.stevebolton.net/?p=512#comment-1974 Hi, Steve. Very interesting for me, as someone whose first love is Mathematics. Two points (the first due to Tom, who drew my attention to it) Dan Meyer is an American Maths teacher who does this sort of thing very well and has achieved some amazing results from his approach. This is all about basically stripping a problem down so there is no information much there at all, and then building it up through conversations with sudents about what the problem means and then what they need to know in order to solve it. (http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.html) My final comment is about your swimming pool problem. The teacher was obviously also an ignorant idiot as well as a bastard: one of the first things you need to learn as a Maths teacher is that there are many roads to the answer and you should appreciate every one. Richard Feynman, the great American physicist, had a lot to say about this. If it's any consolation, your experience exactly mirrors that of Karl Friedrich Gauss, one of the greatest mathematicians ever, who used a similar technique when he was 8 years old (in about 1785) to answer the problem his teacher gave him: add all the whole numbers from 1 to 100. Gauss saw that by adding 1 and 100, 2 and 99, 3 and 98 etc, he would have 50 lots of 101 so the answer was 5050. His teacher was furious (probably thought he would have an hour or so to do his marking). Hi, Steve.

Very interesting for me, as someone whose first love is Mathematics. Two points (the first due to Tom, who drew my attention to it)

Dan Meyer is an American Maths teacher who does this sort of thing very well and has achieved some amazing results from his approach. This is all about basically stripping a problem down so there is no information much there at all, and then building it up through conversations with sudents about what the problem means and then what they need to know in order to solve it. (http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_makeover.html)

My final comment is about your swimming pool problem. The teacher was obviously also an ignorant idiot as well as a bastard: one of the first things you need to learn as a Maths teacher is that there are many roads to the answer and you should appreciate every one. Richard Feynman, the great American physicist, had a lot to say about this. If it’s any consolation, your experience exactly mirrors that of Karl Friedrich Gauss, one of the greatest mathematicians ever, who used a similar technique when he was 8 years old (in about 1785) to answer the problem his teacher gave him: add all the whole numbers from 1 to 100. Gauss saw that by adding 1 and 100, 2 and 99, 3 and 98 etc, he would have 50 lots of 101 so the answer was 5050. His teacher was furious (probably thought he would have an hour or so to do his marking).

]]> Comment on Information Gap in Maths by Steve Bolton http://www.stevebolton.net/?p=512&cpage=1#comment-1828 Steve Bolton Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:15:58 +0000 http://www.stevebolton.net/?p=512#comment-1828 I kind of like 'The Eraser' :) There's also 'step' - the state kids get into when they've got a high fever, and the Balinese have 'stepan' (= catapult). Thanks for the feedback, Tom. Still in Kiribati but I'm following your work and #scpyp with interest. Keep spreading that lurv... I kind of like ‘The Eraser’ :) There’s also ‘step’ – the state kids get into when they’ve got a high fever, and the Balinese have ‘stepan’ (= catapult).

Thanks for the feedback, Tom. Still in Kiribati but I’m following your work and #scpyp with interest.

Keep spreading that lurv…

]]> Comment on Information Gap in Maths by Tom http://www.stevebolton.net/?p=512&cpage=1#comment-1822 Tom Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:04:07 +0000 http://www.stevebolton.net/?p=512#comment-1822 Hi Steve Thanks for this, I've added it to our CLIL collection. Sorry it took so long to give feedback! We don't use coursebooks and most teachers generate their own materials, so this info will hopefully cause a spree of newer, better resources! The CLIL group of teachers are just about to do some whole school p.d. and the ESL teachers on the course are now working intensively with small groups of subject teachers to spread the love. I'll send you copies of our keynote and workshop procedure. I'm hoping we will film the thing too. This is a bit TelPik, but I think I've just worked out the whole Sir Tib thing at long last! It's an Indonesian mispronunciation of your name, isn't it?! There's probably a pun there too. the Jawa 'Sirtip' (sp?) means 'eraser' - The Eraser, quite a cool name for a teacher! Hope to see you back on the CLIL course over here sometime. Many thanks, Tom Hi Steve
Thanks for this, I’ve added it to our CLIL collection. Sorry it took so long to give feedback!
We don’t use coursebooks and most teachers generate their own materials, so this info will hopefully cause a spree of newer, better resources!

The CLIL group of teachers are just about to do some whole school p.d. and the ESL teachers on the course are now working intensively with small groups of subject teachers to spread the love. I’ll send you copies of our keynote and workshop procedure. I’m hoping we will film the thing too.

This is a bit TelPik, but I think I’ve just worked out the whole Sir Tib thing at long last! It’s an Indonesian mispronunciation of your name, isn’t it?! There’s probably a pun there too. the Jawa ‘Sirtip’ (sp?) means ‘eraser’ – The Eraser, quite a cool name for a teacher!

Hope to see you back on the CLIL course over here sometime. Many thanks,
Tom

]]> Comment on KELP Update #1 by Tina http://www.stevebolton.net/?p=535&cpage=1#comment-1439 Tina Sat, 28 May 2011 06:08:26 +0000 http://www.stevebolton.net/?p=535#comment-1439 Ah so talented person....I might ask u to draw the renovation of my house in the future ;-) Ah so talented person….I might ask u to draw the renovation of my house in the future ;-)

]]> Comment on Bali > Tarawa by Tina http://www.stevebolton.net/?p=531&cpage=1#comment-1437 Tina Sat, 28 May 2011 02:03:23 +0000 http://www.stevebolton.net/?p=531#comment-1437 ha ha ha.....ur writing is really amused me and remind me to be always gratitude to what I have and to what am doing until now. Not as bad as u described....well it's now another five months and two weeks to go right ;-) ha ha ha…..ur writing is really amused me and remind me to be always gratitude to what I have and to what am doing until now. Not as bad as u described….well it’s now another five months and two weeks to go right ;-)

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