Has it occurred to anyone else that these WitCHes are a blogging Ponzi scheme? As long as we keep posting new WitCHes, no one bugs us about not polishing off the old WitCHes. What the hell; we’ll keep going until someone calls the Blog Cops. And, to continue with the scheme, this WitCH comes from the Cambridge text Specialist Mathematics 1 & 2, in the section titled Linear Diophantine equations. Happy hunting.
It must be something in the water.
This one, with due credit to Bill and Melinda, will be appearing in plenty of right wing snicker-rags in the very near future. It’s really a PoSWW. However, given the previous (and much more important) post, we decided to make it a companion blivit-WitCH. (As well, we’re working on another post on this stuff, in defense of it.)
Courtesy of the Oregon Department of Education, teachers there are being offered a “micro-course” on Equitable Math Instruction. More specific links are below. Good luck, and Good God.
1. Dismantling Racism in Mathematics Instruction
2. Fostering Deep Understanding
3. Creating Conditions to Thrive (zip file)
4. Connecting Critical Intersections
5. Sustaining Equitable Practice
Whole Course (zip file)
OK, this is one of those blivit WitCHes. Yeah, sorry, but what are you gonna do? We don’t have the time (or the stomach) to give the stuff below the full-blown critique that it warrants, and there is a stormfront much closer to home. Given the thing has been brought to our attention, however, it also seems an error to not raise it on this blog. And so, here we are.
The inestimable Jo Boaler is one of the writers for the California mathematics curriculum review, and the proposed new “framework” is now up for public comment. The screenshots below are from youcubed‘s newsletter, and further below are links to individual chapters of the new framework (all also available here, along with other relevant material). Good luck.
CHAPTER LINKS (Word files, because making PDFs is apparently so damn hard)
(There’s also grade level brochures on this page, but, at posting, the links weren’t working.)
1. Introduction
2. Teaching for Equity and Engagement
3. Number Sense
4. Exploring, Discovering, and Reasoning With and About Mathematics
5. Data Science
6. Mathematics, Investigating and Connecting, Transitional Kindergarten through Grade Five
7. Mathematics, Investigating and Connecting, Grades Six through Eight
8. Mathematics, Investigating and Connecting, Grades Nine through Twelve
9. Supporting Equitable and Engaging Mathematics Instruction
10. Technology and Distance Learning in the Teaching of Mathematics
11. Assessment in the 21st Century
13. Glossary
This WitCH comes from the Cambridge text Specialist Mathematics 1 & 2.
Yes, we have tons of overdue homework for this blog, and we will start hacking into it. Really. But we’ll also try to keep the new posts ticking along.
The following, long WitCH comes from the Cambridge text Mathematical Methods 3 & 4 (including an exercise solution from the online version of the text).
UPDATE (07/02/21)
Commenter John Friend has noted a related question from the 2011 Methods Exam 1. We’ve added that question below, along with the discussion from the assessment report.
The question below is from the second 2020 Methods exam (not online), discussed here. You may wish to brush up on your modal logic before attempting the question.
The question below is from the second 2020 Specialist exam (not online), discussed here. 
The question below is from the second 2020 Specialist exam (not online), and was flagged by commenter John Friend in the discussion here. John has spelled out the problems, but the question is bad enough to warrant its own post, and there’s arguably a little more to be said.
This combo WitCH comes courtesy of mystery correspondent, tjrb. They flagged three multiple choice questions from the 2018 Algorithmics exam (here, and examination report here), and we’ve added a fourth. tjrb also remarks, “There are probably a lot more errors in this paper (and the other algorithmics papers), but these were the most strikingly incorrect”.
For Q2, the examination report indicates that 41% of students gave the intended answer of A. By way of explanation, the report then remarks,
“Cobham theorised that problems that are feasibly computable (also known as easy problems) are those that are decidable in polynomial time.”
For Q6, the report indicate that both A (51%) and C (33%) were “accepted”, but is otherwise silent.
The report is silent on Q12 and Q16, except to indicate the intended answers: C (94%) and A (66%), respectively.
The question below is from the first 2020 Specialist exam (not online). It has been discussed in the comments here, and the main issues have been noted, but we’ve decided the question is sufficiently flawed to warrant its own post.
