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

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

Signs include:

  • Inability to grasp planning that is financial budgeting
  • Difficulty with conceptualizing some time judging the passing of time. Can be chronically late or early
  • Usually unable to understand and remember concepts that are mathematical rules, formulae, and sequences
  • Difficulty navigating or mentally ‘turning’ the map to manage the present direction rather than the common North=Top use
  • Inability to concentrate on mentally tasks that are intensive

As in: ‘I have always been beginning to wonder if I’m dyscalculic because I cannot appear to enhance my math SAT rating, despite all of my studying.’

College as Profession Training

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

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

Elise, an engineer, and commenter below, is the mother of 3 effective children, one of whom got an 800 regarding 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 practically minded.

Figure out how to Mastery, Adding 20% More Study Time

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Catherine said, ‘Debbie, it is time for you to read Daniel Willingham.’

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

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

Wanting to remember some-thing does not have much bearing on whether or perhaps not you will actually remember it….Here’s the manner in which you should consider memory: it’s the residue of thought, meaning that the more you think about something, the more likely it really is that you will remember it later.

Pupils allocated, on average, just 68 percent of the right time needed seriously to get the target score. We could sum this up by saying the third concept is that people tend to think their learning is more complete than it really is.

The final strategy to avoid forgetting would be to overlearn…..Students should study it took to master the material until they know the material and then keep studying……A good rule of thumb is to put in another 20 percent of the time.

The whole article is well worth the read.

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

The Benign Cousin to Rote Knowledge

The more I read Daniel Willingham, the more I realize why the SAT is so hard for me personally. I’m lacking the inspiration knowledge that I need to problem 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. At first glance it might appear rote, but it is not. And, it is incredibly important to students’ education: Inflexible knowledge seems to be the unavoidable foundation of expertise, including that part of expertise that enables individuals to solve novel problems through the use of current 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 learned and applied in new contexts. Flexible knowledge is of course a desirable objective, however it is not an effortlessly achieved one. When encountering new product, the human head appears to be biased towards learning the surface features of problems, maybe not toward grasping the deep framework that is necessary to quickly attain flexible knowledge.

Over Twenty Thousand Students Took SAT Prep in China Last Year

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

Week from May 5, 2011 Business:

Twenty thousand students took SAT prep in China with ‘New essaywriterforyou.com Oriental’ last year, representing at the least a 90 percent share of that market……

‘New Oriental seemingly have cracked the SAT code,’ states Phillip Muth, associate dean for admissions at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Its 1,200 applicants from Asia this year had on average 610 out of 800 on the SAT’s reading part and 670 in writing, in the place of 641 in reading and 650 in writing for U.S. applicants. In math, they attained an average of 783, in contrast to 669 for U.S. students. ‘

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