Since my last post was a month and a half a go, so much for becoming more frequent in my blog postings. I have started a twitter account though. Twitter, with its character limit, seems more conducive for the "hey this is what I'm doing" type of posts than a blog does. When I post here, I feel like I need to have something of substance to say.
Recently, I purchased the book Totally Cool Soapmaking or Kids for dd and me. So today, we went to Michael's to purchase the needed supplies. I'm really excited as this seems like a very do-able project that can be done in a short amount of time yet have a nice product at the end. We're planning on contributing our efforts to our church bazaar. Each year I have grand plans of making something that do not materialize and then I feel badly. This year, I've decided not to worry about it but the soap will be a nice addition.
Along with the above mentioned book, I have purchased a number of other fun things as well. I still have high hopes of doing a lot of educational activities in the evenings. My desire is much larger than my output. I really want to study history and science with the kids, read great literature, write stories, do math, and in short, homeschool. I also want to do Bible study, church history, missions, and worldview study. Unfortunately, doing all of those things along with any kind of crafty things is downright difficult.
Speaking of worldview study, I was really excited this evening to learn of a new worldview curriculum for elementary kids. It is the worldview only portion of another curriculum designed for Christian schools. The first of four volumes has been released with three more to be published one a year between now and 2012. The first volume has ten lessons with each lesson taking one to two weeks. Because it is worldview without the Bible survey, we can use something else for Bible without feeling like we are overlapping. Now I just need to decide when to begin using it. It might be interesting to do this study in a group as well.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
I am recommitting to blogging more faithfully. I feel like my relationship with blogging is similar to a variety of other things I know I should do and are good to do like exercise that just don't quite make it into my day. I have had a great summer and took four weeks off work. Part of those weeks were vacation time in Chicago at ALA and part were family vacation closer to home. ALA with kids went much better than I thought and was a lot of fun. DD already is talking about when we can go back to Chicago. The rest of my time was at home just hanging out with the kids, cleaning some, reading some and just relaxing. Good times!
I'm now back at work for thee second week. Smooth transition back except for computer anomalies. I'm working on exciting new presentations and instruction sessions and am really looking forward to creating some new screencasts.
I'm now back at work for thee second week. Smooth transition back except for computer anomalies. I'm working on exciting new presentations and instruction sessions and am really looking forward to creating some new screencasts.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics
Yesterday I read Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma. I know this book is way outside of the norm of what I usually read, but I had seen it mentioned on a forum and thought it would be interesting.
The premise of the book is comparing the knowledge and teaching of math between U.S. teachers and Chinese teachers. After reading it, I am shocked and ashamed at the poor performance of the U.S. teachers particularly as they interviewed teachers were selected for being above average. These teachers could not adequately explain why math problems were solved in a particular manner and in some instances could not even solve the problems discussed. On the other hand, the Chinese teachers were able to solve the problems and describe why they chose the methods they did. It seems that a great deal of the "why" is because of a Chinese proverb which states "Know how, and also know why." The Chinese teachers were fluent in the mathematical laws that governed why you take a certain action whereas the U.S. teachers were focused on "well this is the procedure and that's the way you do it because that's how I was taught to do it." One instance also related to linguistic difference in how we say the teen numbers which then impacts how math facts and procedures are taught which was quite fascinating.
What next: I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the information I learned in this book. I'm certainly going to continue to afterschool in the area of mathematics although it is the one area in which dd fights me the most. In particular, she emphasizes "that's not how we learned it at school." Now, I'm going to emphasize that there is more than one way to solve problems and that it is important to be fluent in a variety of methods. I want to go back and become more familiar with the mathematical laws and principles and then make sure I use those terms when discussing mathematics with my daughter. I also think it will be good for my noggin to do math problem solving on a more regular basis.
I wish there was something I could do with this information on a more curricular level at my local elementary and even at the institution where I work but I'm not certain what that would be or how to go about it.
The premise of the book is comparing the knowledge and teaching of math between U.S. teachers and Chinese teachers. After reading it, I am shocked and ashamed at the poor performance of the U.S. teachers particularly as they interviewed teachers were selected for being above average. These teachers could not adequately explain why math problems were solved in a particular manner and in some instances could not even solve the problems discussed. On the other hand, the Chinese teachers were able to solve the problems and describe why they chose the methods they did. It seems that a great deal of the "why" is because of a Chinese proverb which states "Know how, and also know why." The Chinese teachers were fluent in the mathematical laws that governed why you take a certain action whereas the U.S. teachers were focused on "well this is the procedure and that's the way you do it because that's how I was taught to do it." One instance also related to linguistic difference in how we say the teen numbers which then impacts how math facts and procedures are taught which was quite fascinating.
What next: I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the information I learned in this book. I'm certainly going to continue to afterschool in the area of mathematics although it is the one area in which dd fights me the most. In particular, she emphasizes "that's not how we learned it at school." Now, I'm going to emphasize that there is more than one way to solve problems and that it is important to be fluent in a variety of methods. I want to go back and become more familiar with the mathematical laws and principles and then make sure I use those terms when discussing mathematics with my daughter. I also think it will be good for my noggin to do math problem solving on a more regular basis.
I wish there was something I could do with this information on a more curricular level at my local elementary and even at the institution where I work but I'm not certain what that would be or how to go about it.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Lately, I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking about librarianship, particularly related to my workplace. I'd really like to implement some library 2.0 ideas and I'd like to re-do our entire library website. However, neither of those ideas are picking up speed with the people that can enable them to move forward. In fact, one of the ideas was squashed unilaterally with no discussion at all. Yet, among all of these things I have had some research ideas and some project ideas that have surfaced.
1. Reading about library 2.0 and particularly one author's ideas of catalog 2.0 raises questions of how library 2.0 relates to information literacy. By making things easier and more convenient for patrons are we undermining making them more information literate?
2. I'd like to do a lot more screencasts, podcasts and other resources to help educate pratrons on our resources and services. In fact, at least one professor has inquired about a specific resource and a second professor just informed me that there isn't room for my usual presentation in his upcoming compacted class which would give me the perfect reason to begin these projects. Yet, I wonder to what extent having resources professors can assign students to view or that patrons can view at their convenience would impact the number of information literacy sessions offered. Hopefully, these resources would allow class time to explore deeper concepts, but professors and students are so easily contented by surface level content.
3. Related to the past post, our institution is working on reformatting our freshman orientation and experience. This is a great opportunity to include more library exposure for everyone. Unfortunately, knowing that everyone has had a very basic, initial exposure might cause more professors to assume students know what to do or believe them when students claim they have experience. We'll have to really push the fact that students need the support of library instruction that is specific to a course and an assignment rather than general.
4. This morning I finished reading Thinking Outside the Book. I've marked numerous essays to peruse more intently later and take notes on. One essay described how a library created an index of state periodicals not indexed anywhere else. Several ideas come to mind as I know that our library carries numerous publications that aren't indexed anywhere else. Yet I am most intrigued in the possibility of creating an index or specialized finding aid for faculty publications (both books and articles). Thinking about it, it seems a shame that we don't have such an aid already. It would also be interesting to take this idea a step beyond and do a list of alumni publications which could tie in another current institutional initiative.
So many ideas and so little time!
1. Reading about library 2.0 and particularly one author's ideas of catalog 2.0 raises questions of how library 2.0 relates to information literacy. By making things easier and more convenient for patrons are we undermining making them more information literate?
2. I'd like to do a lot more screencasts, podcasts and other resources to help educate pratrons on our resources and services. In fact, at least one professor has inquired about a specific resource and a second professor just informed me that there isn't room for my usual presentation in his upcoming compacted class which would give me the perfect reason to begin these projects. Yet, I wonder to what extent having resources professors can assign students to view or that patrons can view at their convenience would impact the number of information literacy sessions offered. Hopefully, these resources would allow class time to explore deeper concepts, but professors and students are so easily contented by surface level content.
3. Related to the past post, our institution is working on reformatting our freshman orientation and experience. This is a great opportunity to include more library exposure for everyone. Unfortunately, knowing that everyone has had a very basic, initial exposure might cause more professors to assume students know what to do or believe them when students claim they have experience. We'll have to really push the fact that students need the support of library instruction that is specific to a course and an assignment rather than general.
4. This morning I finished reading Thinking Outside the Book. I've marked numerous essays to peruse more intently later and take notes on. One essay described how a library created an index of state periodicals not indexed anywhere else. Several ideas come to mind as I know that our library carries numerous publications that aren't indexed anywhere else. Yet I am most intrigued in the possibility of creating an index or specialized finding aid for faculty publications (both books and articles). Thinking about it, it seems a shame that we don't have such an aid already. It would also be interesting to take this idea a step beyond and do a list of alumni publications which could tie in another current institutional initiative.
So many ideas and so little time!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
The Lost Has Been Found!
The lost present mentioned my last post was found shortly afterwards. My husband found it when he went to his secret stash so he could wrap presents to me. I'm not sure how this present got there, but right now I don't care since it's been found.
The case of the missing present
Well, here it is Christmas Eve and I have spent the majority of my day looking for a lost present. It was the first present I bought for my children this year and I have turned all of the places where I typically hide present upside down without success. Frustrated doesn't even begin to cover my feelings. I'm really nervous that it might have gotten thrown out while I was cleaning my closet one day. I sure hope not, but at this point in time I just don't know. Fortunately, since we don't typically open all of our presents on Christmas day, I have time to find it or if needed get a replacement item (Ugh!). In the past we have opened presents on each of the 12 days of Christmas and have also waited until Epiphany/Orthodox Christmas to open all of the presents. We still haven't decided which tactic we are using this year.
Our observance of Advent has been less focused than in previous years and our decorating for Christmas has been more minimalist than usual. In some ways one contributed to the other and our lack of decorating was caused by the heap of stuff that is still in the garage from our June flood. I hope that perhaps the next few days off will allow us to address those items.
Our observance of Advent has been less focused than in previous years and our decorating for Christmas has been more minimalist than usual. In some ways one contributed to the other and our lack of decorating was caused by the heap of stuff that is still in the garage from our June flood. I hope that perhaps the next few days off will allow us to address those items.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Well, it has been forever and a day since I last posted. I hadn't realized it had been so long since I had posted anything but an entire semester has passed without any word from LibrarianMom. Since life isn't that exciting here, I don't have too much to report.
Reading Challenges: Last December I excitedly posted about several reading challenges I hoped to participate in. Well, I didn't finish. My intentions were good and I would like to read the books, but planning out all of my reading for a year at a time was too constricting. I would like to read the books I listed, but I like the flexibility of reading a variety of other things as well.
Afterschooling: This isn't happening to the extent I would like. DD is reading a lot more on her own which is exciting. Our reading isn't progressing as quickly as I would like which I attribute to dd giving herself a bath now instead of needing to be "supervised" like when she was smaller. But something is always better than nothing, and we usually accomplish something each week.
Life is pretty much not coming together in the way I would like. I hoped life would improve since dh changed jobs and no longer has a long commute. However, the house is still a mess and my personal and professional life seems to be at a standstill. Hopefully 2009 will look up.
Reading Challenges: Last December I excitedly posted about several reading challenges I hoped to participate in. Well, I didn't finish. My intentions were good and I would like to read the books, but planning out all of my reading for a year at a time was too constricting. I would like to read the books I listed, but I like the flexibility of reading a variety of other things as well.
Afterschooling: This isn't happening to the extent I would like. DD is reading a lot more on her own which is exciting. Our reading isn't progressing as quickly as I would like which I attribute to dd giving herself a bath now instead of needing to be "supervised" like when she was smaller. But something is always better than nothing, and we usually accomplish something each week.
Life is pretty much not coming together in the way I would like. I hoped life would improve since dh changed jobs and no longer has a long commute. However, the house is still a mess and my personal and professional life seems to be at a standstill. Hopefully 2009 will look up.
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