Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI)

Catherine was interested in this. I'm putting it "up front" so it doesn't get lost.

This is an excellent resource on cortical visual impairment.

CVI is neurological as opposed to ocular visual impairment.

Puzzle

Question. What do the following have in common:

Youth Service
Ballooning
Ladder Safety
Deserts
Buying a Computer
Fundraising
Politics
Communication
Wages
Billiards

Answer. They are the "Applications Highlights" from a chapter in a math textbook; the chapter title is Linear Equations and Functions.

Catherine is right; it's always worse than you think.

(This came up on a list about converting math textbooks to braille. I don't have the book title. It's published by McDougalLittell.)


triplets homework
puzzle

dimensional analysis advice from Susan J

As a former chemistry teacher I would say you cannot overemphasize an understanding of dimensional analysis.

For kids who don't see the point, ask them "backwards" questions such as how many feet are in an inch?

Also, have them do long chains such as determining how many centimeters in a mile. It's good to have figured these out in advance yourself so your student is instantly rewarded if they get the right answer.

what's possible in high school?

There's a fascinating article titled "The Incredibles" in yesterday's NYTimes EducationLife section. This article focusses on students who are superachievers in high school and may even be bored in college. It was clear from the article that there definitely are such students.

For example, the former mathematics department chairman of George Mason University now teaches at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, which is a public magnet school in Virginia. Some students are taking "Complex Analysis" which has A.P. calculus plus a second year of advanced math as pre-requisite. [Yikes! That's my field and I'm not sure I understand it all even yet.]

However, of more relevance to our discussions was this interesting comment by the president of Pomona College. "High schools are trying to imitate college and teach college-type material instead of the high school material they used to teach ... They are now learning the advanced stuff, but not the basic stuff. We are finding students who have learned about s-, p- and d-orbitals -- a theoretical concept in chemistry -- but they don't know that chlorine is a gas."

Another educator concurred. "High school-age students are not mature enough to grasp the subtleties of some material...."