by Parker Pracjek on May 18, 2012 in Must Reads
Many parents love to tell stories of the formidable hurdles they faced growing up, like the classic “I had a to walk uphill both ways in the snow to get to school” tale. My mother’s version of this story harkens back to her time in graduate school. There, on numerous occasions, her art school profs would make an interesting comment about one of her works in progress . . . and then tell her to destroy it. Or they would destroy it for her. Entire clay torsos were lobbed off in anatomy sculpture class and canvases were whitewashed in color theory. She speaks of the shock this always produced, but then notes the invaluable lesson learned: her development depended largely on learning how to fail better and better.
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by Sujey Batista on May 2, 2012 in Must Sees
I used to feel like I wore an imaginary cone-shaped hat with the words DUNCE scribbled in bright red marker in my mathematics classes. The world of numbers and equations was always troublesome for me. My earliest memory of mathematics involves me crying over my workbook in grade school as I struggled with long division. I still have nightmares about that experience. Read more about Math Phobia here.
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by Barrington Scott on April 18, 2012 in Reflections
Introduction
Math is the most feared subject in the American school system. Students ranging from lower-level to college-level seem to dread the subject.
Math phobia is serious issue in America, and many cartoonists and other individuals seem to communicate the issue in funny cartoons to remind us continuously that it’s not an individual problem but the entire county’s problem. The more people become aware of widespread math phobia, the more likely that they will take the necessary steps collectively to address it.
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by Nathan Schiller on April 3, 2012 in Reflections
A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about two sisters with divergent academic paths has made me think about the question “What is the point of attending college?” Is the answer: to acquire a wealth of knowledge about a variety of topics that scholars and administrators have determined are worth exploring? To meet eager and like-minded learners with whom you will mesh on a personal and intellectual level and start the Next Great Company? Or is it to obtain a certificate that by its sheer existence proves you are qualified for a higher position—and thus a higher paycheck—at your current job?
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by Parker Pracjek on March 29, 2012 in Reflections
Sometimes as teachers, we pull from our ever-expanding bag of tricks all sorts of odds and ends that we hope can catalyze a student’s comprehension, inquiry or motivation. These tools can be nuanced, direct, or bluntly manipulative. The weirdest such oddity I recently “pulled out” was in an APA workshop for a CA class: I actually found myself telling students to refer to the MCNY APA guide as their holy text while students here. How corny. What’s worse, I repeated the same line in three such workshops.
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by Sujey Batista on March 15, 2012 in Must Reads
Artist, web designer, and part-time grammarian, Matthew Inman, writes and draws all the content on his hilarious web page, The Oatmeal. His site features witty, satirical, comic-like illustrations ranging in topic from “Netflix splitting in two” to “What it’s like to own an Apple product”. Inman even has an entire category of comics dedicated to grammar. In the link below, he has put together a hilarious and informative comic on what he considers the “most feared punctuation on earth”, the semicolon. His illustration, which is available for purchase, reminds us that learning grammar can be fun!
Click here for Inman’s fun with the semicolon.
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by Aleksandr Rusinov on March 8, 2012 in Must Sees
Introduction
Society expects teachers to successfully facilitate students’ cognitive development. But cognition occurs when taught material makes sense and is affected by emotional development. Recognizing that neither teachers nor students are educated in pieces, but rather as part of a larger educational system, we must address many variables that affect students’ attitudes, morale, and school performance. One of these variables is the ongoing training in problem solutions in a classroom setting. Lately, I have been thinking about how a student’s intellectual growth and confidence are improved via finding solutions to brain teasers.
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by Nathan Schiller on February 2, 2012 in Must Reads
Introduction
One of the things I stress to all my students is the importance of reading outside of the classroom. Typically, we connote “pleasure” (or “leisure”) reading, as it’s so often referred to, with reading something simple and easy, like the sports page or a detective thriller. And while there is nothing wrong with catching up on the latest Girl with the Dragon Tattoo installment or getting some critical commentary about the Knicks’ woes, it is imminently possible to enjoy—or, dare I say, be entertained by—a somewhat more intellectual/educational reading. On that note, allow me to suggest Stanley Fish’s blog on the New York Times website.
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by Parker Pracjek on January 20, 2012 in Must Sees
For many students (and many people in general!), being informed and engaged in politics can feel intimidating, abstract, or even a big waste of time. But this week, we have yet another reminder that, in fact, “the political is the personal, and the personal is political.” If you weren’t following the news, you may have found out about two bills in Congress merely by visiting some of your favorite websites. Google, Wikipedia, Twitter, Wired and dozens of other sites have been staging protests to these bills.
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by Sujey Batista on January 20, 2012 in Reflections
A considerable amount of the students at MCNY are “adult learners”. While 18-25 year olds are adults, this term specifically refers to adults ages 35+. REAL adults. Adults with much more life experience then the average college student.
Adult Learners come here for our accelerated degree programs. The promise of a degree in a shortened time period is very attractive to the AL who feels that they have already lost some time.
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