News: Being a good teacher
Discounting your problem-solving
As I was leaving the other day, a student said that she would come to see us the next day to ask some questions about her assignment. She said she had tried to do as much of it herself as she could, and had only done 70% of it.
Only one chance
We've been running Drop-In Centre tutor training recently, and as part of the training we discussed the statistics on how students use the Centre. The focus of this post is the following graph:
Charlotte's Sudoku
The other night I was doing a Sudoku, and my two-year-old daughter Charlotte decided she wanted to help, as she always does at any time when I have a pen and paper she could steal.
Very Unique
I often hear that the phrase "very unique" is not a correct thing to say. The explanation is that the word unique means "there is nothing else like it" and as such is already an absolute. So there's no grades of unique: something is either unique or it's not – there is nothing else like it or there is someting like it. This is a good explanation, so I agree we shouldn't use the phrase "very unique".
Pushing your own "Dawn Treader"
I went to see the new movie version of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader on my birthday and I was sorely disappointed. I liked The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and I was a little disappointed with Prince Caspian – if the pattern continues I wonder what depths of disappointment I might sink to if they ever make The Silver Chair.
Wisdom from the Dodecahedron
The Dodecahedron is a character from the book The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. He lives in the city of Digitopolis at the base of the Mountains of Ignorance. Here is his description from the book (page 145)
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