How to Make Burkard Boring

Yesterday, I had an overlook at the blog, the list of posts to write and fixes to make, and so forth. It doesn’t mean I’ll do any of it, but at least I’m thinking about it.

When deciding what to write upon I’m driven of course by whatever interests me, but also by some queer sense of obligation: this or that thing should be written about and it likely won’t be, or at least not enough and not forcefully enough, so I’d better do it. If ACARA or VCAA is screwing up (or, on occasion, doing well), then I figure it is my job to write upon it. If Albo is seeking to strengthen Australia’s already too strong censorship regime, or if some born-to-rule clown wants to defend a Robodebt asshole, then I feel an obligation to say something. Continue reading “How to Make Burkard Boring” →

Normalising Tom Peachey

Tom Peachey has a new post on his blog: The Formula for a Normal Distribution. It is an interesting discussion of how a smarter student may be confused by the pdf of a normal distribution, and in particular by how the pdf and the distribution are affected by a transformation. Please go over to Tom’s blog and give his post a read.

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TNDOT Friday 7: Algebra

Yes, it’s TNDOT Week, here in CrapLand.

We’ve decided to try to make TNDOT a regular Friday thing. So, the plan is to post an old exam problem sometime each Friday day (Melbourne time), and then readers can ponder and discuss over the week-end. Once readers have provided enough in the way of solutions, we’ll update the post, presumably early each following week.

There will be no hard and fast rule about when readers’ full solutions should be postable, but maybe Sunday evening Melbourne time makes sense? Of course before then readers are permitted, and encouraged, to share approaches and provide hints and the like, as is natural for the discussion at hand. General principle: this is supposed to be fun and educational for all, not a competition. So be looking to help each other without too much limelight hogging.

This one is in a similar vein to the previous, and is from the 1916 Victorian Pass Algebra Matric exam. Enjoy.

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As Long as We Beat Up New Zealand

We haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to New Zealand. We wrote on the idiotic rectangle question, which was idiotically repeated. Then, when bashing ACARA’s dissembling on their ludicrous draft mathematics curriculum, we took a peek at the NZ primary curriculum and, in particular, the NZ treatment of fractions: in brief, the curriculum seemed weak, disorganised and confused, comparable but significantly worse than Australia’s (then and now). There’s also the whole Maori perversion of science thing, of course, which is Dark Emu-ish and hilarious and nuts, but which we figured was a few too many steps from home base. That’s been about it. Now, however, New Zealand may be worth a close look.

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WitCH 142: Passé Sahlberg

Pasi Sahlberg is an education superstar. As Pasi describes himself, he “is [a] Finnish teacher, educator and author”. Others describe Sahlberg as an “expert” and a “guru”, and he has won many awards. Sahlberg was on the Expert Panel for Jason Clare’s recent review to Inform a Better and Fairer Education System, and Sahlberg is currently Professor in Educational Leadership at the University of Melbourne. By all appearances, Sahlberg is intelligent, dedicated, well-intentioned, funny and charming. And here we are.

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