July 25, 2019

by Ellen Braaten and Brian Willoughby

I read this because I am working with someone who tested for low processing speed.  The book gives much good information.  The part I was most interested is the brain issues that may cause slow processing speek.  Here are some possibilities:

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May be caused by:

1. Size of nerves in the brain

2. How well the brain metabolizes glucose

3. Integrity of how rapidly and efficiently the brain cells ‘fire’

-neurotransmitters in the brain (low levels of certain ones can effect concentration and speed. 

Particularly acetylcholine - connected with slower reaction times, poor attention, delayed information processing.

   4.how well the neurons are covered with myelin

   5. Size of synapses

   6. How well the neural networks are organized – maybe because task was learned poorly to begin with or because it wasn’t practiced enough.  About practice – if a certain neural pathway is activated once, it is easier to activate a second time…Things speed up with practice and some kids need more practice than others.  With some – they need to ‘overlearn’ a task

7. Efficiency of the frontal lobes in organizing and directing information flow

June 12, 2019

by Cynthia Arem

By changing negative math self-talk to positive self-talk, you can greatly improve your ability to deal with math.

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If you are interested in all my notes, check out my facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/Donnas-Tutoring-935406723204146/

 I posted all my notes on each chapter there.  

April 08, 2019

Paper in Science Advances about neuroscience

My notes:

Memory needs fast incoming encoding and stable long-term storage.

Hippocampus rapidly encodes transient memory traces.

2nd system forms long-term memory representation in neocortex.

Then hippocampus reinforces trace in memory consolidation.

Sleep offers an optimal environment for memory consolidation owing to an absence of external interference and changes in neurotransmitter levels that enable enhanced hippocampal-neocortical dialog. – possibly by reactivation of traces during sleep.

Sleep is required to stabilize changes in the brain.  

Sleep changed the pattern of brain responses to old memories.  

While repeated study is sufficient to trigger systems consolidation, these transitions can only be successfully stabilized if sleep follows learning

June 04, 2019

by Ellen Braaten, Ph.D., coauthor of Bright Kids Who Can’t Keep Up and Straight Talk About Psychological Testing for Kids,

 Interesting info about processing speed and how it shows up in kids.  Slow processing speed does not equate to low IQ.  It just might make it take longer to comprehend and get work done.  Slow process speed may be caused by larger gaps between the neurons, by less myelin coating, by differences in neurotransmitters, or by some other abnormality that isn't known yet.  It may cause the brain to take longer to make neural networks, so the information is bushwacking through a forest instead of riding on a highway.  It is not something that seems to improve with age significantly, but it can be accommadated for.  There is no cure - but we can accept, accommodate, and advocate.

May 21, 2019

video lecture series from The Great Courses

This 24 lecture series ponders the 'impossible' (both things that used to be thought impossible and things that still seem impossible) to investigate physical laws.  Many branches of physics were discussed including motion, thermodynamics, electromagnetism, relativity, black holes, et al.  Symmetry (a new area for me) was related to conservation laws.  The idea of 'information' brought together such topics as black holes and time travel and quantum entanglement.  The idea of probability linked classical and statistical mechanics.  I learned that I have so much more to learn!!!

July 21, 2016

finished 7/21/2016

This 12 lecture series was intended to teach about new findings in the brain, learning, and brain health.  While it tended to emphasize what older people could do to maintain their brain health, there was much that younger people could glean from it.  The brain is 'plastic' - it is changed when you use it - both in growing neurons and in consolidating connections.  Many brain exercises were given but the biggest thing was to use deliberate practice - paying attention to what you are doing with the intention of improving.  This takes attention and repetition and freedom from distraction.  Testing yourself often helps consolidate this work in your brain.  I did learn some things that could be used in tutoring.  One is for asking for conscious recall of specific information - because as you recall the material you store it more deeply in long-term memory.

December 31, 2016

book by Keith Devlin, finished 8/18/2016

Who said scribes of the 12th century didn't have a sense of humor. One manuscript (handwritten book) ended with the scribes words:

Explicit hoc totum; 
Pro Christo da mihi potum,

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You Latin lovers can translate that as: 
The job is done, I think; 
For Christ’s sake give me a drink

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This little gem comes from the book I am reading about Fibonacci - fascinating guy who, in the 12th century, moved Europe from Roman Numerals to Hindu-Arabic numbers. I read  this as part of my research for my Number Sense class. I sure hope I have enough students to teach it. If you have a middle schooler - consider signing him/her up for this unusual math class.

July 13, 2016

lecture series by Dr. Tim Chartier from The Great Courses series, finished July 13, 2016

Trying to expand my knowledge of current topics in applied math, I watched this 24 lecture series on Big Data.  Data Analytics is a combination of applied math and computer science.  Much of it seems quite complex to me, but I was glad to see that answer to the perpetual question, "Is this really used in the real world?"  The answer is YES.  Math is used in the statistical analysis, the regressions, the clustering, the search/sorting algorithms, and the general fitting of data. I did learn a few new words: apophenia - the experience fo seeing pattterns or connections in random or meaningless data; randomania - attributing patterned data to chance; pareidolia - the ability to turn vague visual images into something meaningful.  This was an interesting series, but I would need to watch it again and again to really understand all the facets of it (actually I would need to delve into more than this one overview series).

July 08, 2016

by Eugenia Cheng, finished July 8, 2016

In a very conversational tone, the author talks about deep math subjects.  Math has different levels of abstraction.  Basic math is an abstract way of figuring out real life situations and then deeper levels of math use deeper abstraction to think about math itself.  I enjoyed reading this book most of the time (it did get deep).  It opened my mind to deeper levels of math than I have ever dealth with (like category theory).  But I don't think it will be immediately useful in tutoring except for giving me a more fully rounded mathematial outlook.

July 04, 2016

24 lecture series by The Teaching Company finished 7/4/2016

I just finished watching 12 hours of video about how to be a good teacher.  While it is geared to college level teaching, I learned much that will help me with my younger crowd.  One key is to teach less better.  In my enrichment classes I have a tendancy to try to cover too much information.  I need to think about what is most important and not overwhelm the kids.  One take away poem about improvement is this:  Good, better, best/ Never let it rest/ until the good is better/ and the better is best.  We can always improve.

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I am working through this study guide.

Since the SAT was changed this year (beginning March 2016), I want to be prepared to tutor for the new test.  What I am finding so far is that the new test is more closely alligned with school math classes.  So the best way to prepare is to pay attention and master your algebra and geometry classes.   

The link below give you the entire study guide but not the practice tests.  

April 13, 2016

Finished 4/13/2016

Since I am interested in tutoring as a means of increasing the intelligence and thinking ability of my clients I thought this would be a great book for me.  Here are a few key points: 

Many Americans believe that abilities are essentially fixed at birth: either you have math ability or you don’t.  Others believe abilities are highly susceptible to manipulation: if you work hard, you will be beater at a given skill than if you don’t.   This book discusses how much of intelligence is inherited and how much is under environmental control.   The book uses real studies to show that upbringing and culture, not genes, account for a lot of differences in IQ between different segments of population. 

Students who believe that ability is a matter of hard work get higher grades than students who believe ability comes from the genes.  A culture that values effort and realizes that learning is a process and that mistakes are valuable tools for learning produces more intelligent people.  Learning changes the brain by forming new neurological connections and students are in charge of this change process.

And we Westerners could learn something from Asians.  When they do badly at something, they respond by working harder, whereas Americans tend to give up and go back to doing something we know we can do well.  Persistence in the face of failure is very much part of the Asian tradition of self-improvement.

I am currently taking this course online as an audit.

Statistical Reasoning is an important math concept, but one that isn't covered as thoroughly in schools.  However, there will be more statistical reasoning on the new SAT.  I thought I should re-educate myself on these ideas.

April 20, 2016

I read this book as I plan and improve my Biblical Literacy class.

I have a hobby of collecting Biblical Allusions in literature and throughout life.  One of my favorite courses to teach is my Biblical Literacy class for secular students.  This guide book is helpful in seeing the big picture of the Bible.  More specifically, it is helping me see a new way to organize my lessons on the Four Gospels.   It is a great overview of Bible highlights.