Dyscalculic. Dyscalculia or math disability is a specific learning disability involving innate difficulty in learning or comprehending simple mathematics.

Dyscalculic. Dyscalculia or math disability is a specific learning disability involving innate difficulty in learning or comprehending simple mathematics. It is akin to dyslexia and includes difficulty in understanding numbers, learning how exactly to manipulate numbers, learning math facts, and a great many other associated symptoms (although there is no exact kind of the disability). Dyscalculia happens in people across the whole IQ range.

Signs include:

  • Incapacity to comprehend financial preparation or budgeting
  • Difficulty with conceptualizing time and judging the passing of time. May be chronically late or early
  • Usually unable to understand and remember mathematical concepts, rules, formulae, and sequences
  • Difficulty navigating or mentally ‘turning’ the map to manage the direction that is current than the common North=Top usage
  • Inability to concentrate on mentally intensive tasks

As in: ‘we am starting to wonder if I’m dyscalculic because I cannot seem to enhance my math SAT score, despite all of my studying.’

University as Job Training

Interesting conversations happening in the comments of this post, one of which has to do with whether or not college must be profession training.

As being a liberal arts degree holder, I’d like to believe my children could have that same possibility, should they were so inclined. In my fantasy world, they use summer internships to explore career options and get to study art, history and literature in university. Have always been I dreaming?

Elise, an engineer, and commenter below, is the mother of 3 kids that are successful one of who got an 800 on the math SAT and is valedictorian of his course. She believes college is career training.

Thankfully, The Chronicle of Higher Education just published the Median Earnings by Major, for the virtually minded.

Learn to Mastery, add 20% then More Research Time

A few weeks ago, my pal Catherine stated, ‘Debbie, it is time for you to read Daniel Willingham.’

Willingham is a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Virginia. His website is really a treasure trove of useful information regarding how we learn.

From Willingham’s article, What Will Improve A pupil’s Memory:

Wanting to remember some-thing doesn’t have bearing that is much whether or not you will actually remember it….Here’s how you should consider memory: it’s the residue of thought, meaning that the more you consider something, the much more likely it’s that you will remember it later.

Pupils allocated, on average, just 68 percent of the right time had a need to get the target score. We are able to sum this up by saying the third concept is that people tend to think their learning is more complete than it surely is.

The last strategy to avoid forgetting is to overlearn…..Students should learn until they know the material then keep studying……A good guideline of thumb is to place in another 20 per cent of the time it took to master the material.

The article that is whole definitely worth the read.

I’ve been doling out the tips like little Scooby treats to my son, as he prepares for finals. Surprisingly, he’s interested and is using the advice.

The Benign Cousin to Rote Knowledge

The greater I read Daniel Willingham, the more I understand why the SAT is so hard for me. I’m lacking the foundation knowledge that I have to issue re solve on these tests.

From Willingham’s article on Inflexible Knowledge:

An even more cousin that is benign rote knowledge is what I would call ‘inflexible’ knowledge. On top it may appear rote, but it’s perhaps not. And, it is incredibly important to students’ education: Inflexible knowledge seems to function as the unavoidable foundation of expertise, including that part of expertise that enables individuals to fix novel problems through the use of existing knowledge to new situations—sometimes known popularly as ‘problem-solving’ skills.

Knowledge is flexible with regards to can be accessed out of the context in which it was applied and learned in brand new contexts. Flexible knowledge is of course a desirable goal, however it is not an easily achieved one. When encountering new product, the human mind seems to be biased towards learning the surface features of problems, perhaps not toward grasping the deep structure that is necessary to attain knowledge that is flexible.

Over Twenty Thousand Students Took SAT Prep in China year that is last

As my SAT scores continue to plateau, despite months of study and determination (and lot of fun), I’ve stomped my foot and declared on significantly more than one occasion: ‘Who are these kids rocking the SAT and what are their parents feeding them?’

From Might 5, 2011 Business Week:

Twenty thousand students took prep that is SAT China with ‘New Oriental’ last year, representing at least a 90 % share of that market……

‘New Oriental seemingly have cracked the code that is SAT’ states Phillip Muth, associate dean for admissions at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Its 1,200 candidates from Asia this year had an average of 610 out of 800 on the SAT’s reading area and 670 ap biology lab report example in writing, instead of 641 in reading and 650 in writing for U.S. applicants. In mathematics, an average was achieved by them of 783, compared with 669 for U.S. students. ‘

It isn’t lost on me personally either that English is a language that is second.