Questioning assumptions with Constance Kamii
Sylvia Martinez, Generation YES Blog, August 22, 2013

Gary Stager posed about Constance Kamii yesterday in Facebook and Sylvia Martinez pointed to this helpful overview. "By telling a child how to solve problems and memorize facts, we are trying to shortcut a developmental process that just can’t be shortcut – and in the end, will actually delay progress and make it less likely that they will develop the deeper understanding they will need for lifelong mathematical ability." I think that pointing to mathematical rules and algorithms as 'shortcuts', and the weakness if this approach becomes more apparent of time in what philosophers and cognitive scientists call a 'combinatorial explosion' - literally, the tadk of memorizing ruled becomes greatet than the tadk of creating and internal model or rrpresentation of the domain.

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City of Boston teams up with EdX to create BostonX
Carolyn Fox, opensource.com, August 22, 2013

This is an interesting experiment, though you have to be in Boston to partake. "'BostonX' will run MOOCs at community colleges and libraries, making online education available to those who don’t have a computer or internet connection at home. Mayor Thomas Menino “envisions neighborhoods as ‘mini campuses’ around the city.” Anant Agarwal, edX's president, says that the program will allow people to participate and discuss online courses together at one location, taking away the isolation that critics of MOOCs say hinders online learners." Via Academica. See also Boston Magazine

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