Sand Castle Summer

Look what I just found on Math Munch: Cool, geometric sand castles made by Calvin Seibert. What will you create on the beach this summer?

What Google has learned about hiring

A few days ago, the New York Times published an interview by Adam Bryant entitled “In Head-Hunting, Big Data May Not Be Such a Big Deal”. Bryant interviewed Lazslo Bock, a Google executive, about what Google has learned about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to hiring new employees.

Google has the resources to crunch numbers on employee performance or success and match that to hiring criteria. Most of the rest of us don’t, so this is worth reading. Here are a few things that stood out for me, as someone who participates on hiring committees and tends to wonder how good I am at judging applicants.

“Years ago, we did a study to determine whether anyone at Google is particularly good at hiring. We looked at tens of thousands of interviews, and everyone who had done the interviews and what they scored the candidate, and how that person ultimately performed in their job. We found zero relationship.”

“On the hiring side, we found that brainteasers are a complete waste of time...What works well are structured behavioral interviews, where you have a consistent rubric for how you assess people, rather than having each interviewer just make stuff up...[also] where you’re not giving someone a hypothetical, but you’re starting with a question like, “Give me an example of a time when you solved an analytically difficult problem.”

“Twice a year, anybody who has a manager is surveyed on the manager’s qualities...We then share that with the manager, and we track improvement across the whole company. Over the last three years, we’ve significantly improved the quality of people management at Google, measured by how happy people are with their managers...for most [managers], just knowing that information causes them to change their conduct.”

Lastly, this is my favorite bit from the article:

“...G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless...We found that they don’t predict anything...the proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time...academic environments are artificial environments. People who succeed there are...conditioned to succeed in that environment. One of my own frustrations when I was in college and grad school is that you knew the professor was looking for a specific answer...You want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer.”

These insights have far-reaching implications for teachers, not just members of hiring committees.

Assessment Items

There is a new Smarter Balanced Practice Test released. You can choose a grade level (3, 4, 5, etc.) and choose math and see an early version of the Common Core math assessments that will replace the NECAP.

I can get the practice test to work on some computers, but not on my personal laptop because it won’t let me drag and drop. I have no idea why. And if you can’t drag and drop, you can’t answer test questions or advance to the next question. Try it yourself and hopefully it will work. I submitted a report to SBAC but they said they can’t reproduce that problem so they really didn’t have any advice for me.

These practice tests are worth a look. Pass them along to students to try this summer, and/or do the problems with your classes in the fall. Answers and scoring guide is due to become available in July.

This fall, students will take their last NECAP tests. Here are all the NECAP released items, which serve as great practice over the summer or in the fall before the assessment window.

St. Louis STEM Reader

I attended the NSTA STEM Conference in St. Louis last week with several colleagues. It was a very worthwhile trip.

Top Quotes

“Engineering naturally integrates mathematics, science, social studies and language literacy.” - Tamara Moore

“Tell kids they are doing engineering. Use that word. Students, especially girls, tend to go to medical school or major in science in college if they enjoy STEM. Very few choose engineering because they don't know what that means.” - Liz Parry

“If you are not iterating, it is not engineering.” - Ann McMahon

“Is it really STEM or is it just John Dewey?” - Tara Bell

Top Takeaways

1. High-quality STEM education is more about the how than the what. We can’t teach students everything they will need to know. We can help them learn how to learn.

2. The habits of mind related to engineering can be a thread running through all content areas. Empathy, collaboration, failure, iteration, perseverance, social justice, activism, leadership.

3. STEM has the potential to make a real difference for equity and diversity. It has been shown to be an effective way to engage struggling or at risk students. Currently, success in STEM subjects in school and in careers is very skewed toward certain demographic groups, and something needs to be done to change that.

Favorite Presenters

Tara Bell, STEM coach at Washington STEM Academy in Champaign, IL

Bob Goodman (New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning: Ridgewood, NJ) Demystifying Science with the Progressive Science Initiative (PSI) Equity requires that all high school students learn physics, chemistry, and biology. PSI is a free open-source program that is helping schools achieve that goal.

Liz Parry, Coordinator, STEM Partnership Development, The Engineering Place, College of Engineering, NC State University

Ann P. McMahon Ex-Aerospace engineer. Strategies for integrating STEM with social and emotional learning. Ann recently gave a TEDx talked titled Engineering Empathy (use password tedxgladstone).

Beth Bender, Principal of Gateway STEM High School, St. Louis. A public magnet school, 85% FRL, 55% African american, increasing ELL. There is a lack of awareness about engineering, and it is mostly male. Engineering students give demonstrations for other students during lunch; recruiting for the high school is done with hands-on tasks, live puppies.

Tamara Moore, University of Minnesota. STEM Education Center. Said she would soon be running a pilot program of K-6 STEM integrated units that include a heavy children’s literature component.

Resources

Family Engineering (book and website recommended by Liz Parry)

TeachEngineering

Ideo and the Design Thinking for Educators toolkit

New Jersey Center for Teaching and Learning

eGFI

Gateway STEM High School

The Deep Dive

EnLIST Entrepreneurial Leadership in STEM Teaching and Learning

University of Minnesota STEM Education Center

TryEngineering

National Center for Universal Design on Learning

Geometry Daily

http://geometrydaily.tumblr.com/

I love the images on this website. A new one is created daily and generously shared with the world. I would like to use these with students. The only prompt would be, simply, “What do you see?”

Estimation Jars

Today I’m creating Estimation Jars for Math Night at John J. Flynn Elementary School. This is always a highlight at Math Night and it’s fun to watch kids at work on their estimate. I have one jar full of Rolos (there is something appealing about the gold wrapping), a smaller jar containing Skittles, and a very small jar with unpopped popcorn.

This year, I plan to accept all estimates within a reasonable range for each jar and then randomly draw a winner. That’s different than past Math Nights when the person who estimated the number closest to the actual number won the jar. I am hoping this helps promote a more correct understanding of estimation, with the goal being to produce a reasonable estimate, not to land on or closest to the exact number.

It is a good idea to have a few jars containing different sized objects so students can think about how the relative size of the objects affects the number that fit in a space. Ongoing math explorations can be done using estimation jars outside of an event like Math Night. Here is an excellent write-up and video about how classroom teachers can use estimation jars with their students, with a focus on the all-important concepts of doubling and halving.

NCSM Denver - Brilliant Minds

Penny Stearns and I flew to Denver for the NCSM 2013 conference. NCSM is an organization focused on mathematics education leadership. They have resources on their website. The powerpoint presentations from the conference presenters aren’t posted yet but I hope they will be soon.

We’ve seen some incredible speakers over the last 3 days. These include the following:

Cathy Seeley

Marilyn Burns

Kati Haycock

Jo Boaler

Steve Leinwand

Cheryl Adeyami

Greg Tang

Deborah Ball

Heather Hill

These are folks you will want to look up. I will definitely get their entire presentations when they become available.

Steve Leinwand is my new hero. He yells, which I appreciate. Speak truth to power, Steve says. He talked about how he helped turn around a middle school in Missouri. His stories and learning from that process are fascinating. Steve keeps teachers and students at the center of his school reform work. At the end of his compelling talk, he showed a slide listing the names of the teachers at the Missouri school. He thanked them and dedicated the talk to them.

Steve shared 9 research affirmed practices for improving a school.

Number one is that effective teachers respond to most student answers with Why? How do you know that? or Can you explain your thinking?

Instruction is everything, says Steve.

Regarding the Standards of Mathematical Practice: Practice #3 is where it’s at. Those 9 words are the most important words in the entire Common Core standards. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

Finally, Steve said we probably shouldn’t be talking about an achievement gap. This makes it sound like it is the students’ fault. We should instead be talking about an instruction gap. Wow.

I was going to write something about these other speakers as well, but I wrote so much about Steve that I think I will postpone. More to come.

Here is Steve today. I took this with my phone. Go Steve!

PBS Kids Lab

New, high-quality resources for math education keep popping up.

Paula Kerger, of PBS, recently published a press release on the Huffington Post about some new things on the PBS Kids website. "...as we looked at our work with a critical eye, we realized that we needed to step up our efforts in helping kids learn math literacy. That's why this week we're launching "It All Adds Up," which aims to boost math learning at home -- and everywhere -- by providing resources for parents. With these free resources, which were developed in partnership with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) through the Department of Education's Ready To Learn Initiative, parents can use their mobile phones or computers, or do hands-on activities, to help their children learn basic math skills."

PBS Kids has found what other education researchers already knew: "...nearly 30 percent of parents have anxiety about teaching their child math. In part, this issue stems from the fact that 25 percent of parents find it hard to incorporate math into conversations and activities at home. Math may seem harder to weave into natural discussions and activities in the home, leaving time- and resource-strapped parents unsure where to begin."

I visited the new PBIS Kids Lab and was impressed. There are resources there for parents and teachers. I liked Math Activity of the Day and the context-specific Ideas to Go. There are tons of online activities and mobile apps. I tried a bunch, and one I would recommend is Freddy’s Carnival Games (Ages 6-8, counting). I think it is best to test these first and give specific ones to kids, rather than turning them loose with the entire menu of options.