I really, really love the hidden wisdom you've embedded within the history memory palace game like a D&D trapdoor under the rug. We really want people to be thinking the intellectual equivalent of "What's under the rug?" much more often.
Do you envision this educational model to be possible with only child homeschool students? Or is the synergy of multiple learners not only beneficial but necessary for deep learning?
And... how do I start this with my 8th grader today? And how does it integrate with your 6 years of science? We just created all of the timelines for year one. Would you recommend placing the history events on the same timeline as the science events? Or keep them only in the memory palace? (Again, sorry if you answer all of this in previous posts. I'll go see what I can find!) I really enjoy wrestling through these posts and am excited for each new idea to be shared; but it does feel very much like drinking from a fire hose! I don't know how to keep up or how to practically begin to implement these brilliant ideas. Maybe you could share a couple bullet points of how to start applying one thing today? Something that is accessible, if that's possible? Maybe I'm asking too much. Just thought I'd toss that out there.
We also just started a Deep Practice Book for math and even though I tried to introduce it well, he still just sees it as one more thing to do. So I haven't forced it. (If I understood your post correctly, you don't recommend forcing it.) I can't figure out how to inspire buy-in. It seems like so much of what I've tried to do Egan-style has fallen a little flat because it hinges on a measure of student led curiosity and intentionality. (This includes LiD which I *love*!!) I so badly wanted to impart a deep love of wonder and learning to Zeke but at this point, I just don't know if that's even possible anymore. How can we get past this??
In case a reply from someone else who is doing SiW/LiD/giving this history thing a try and has tried a DPB is at all helpful...
I definitely get the fire hose feeling sometimes! I think one of the hardest things about this kind of thoughtfully curated education is that it brings us face to face with the fact that there are more wonderful things to learn than there is time to learn them and so of course we have to choose only some subset of them. And my kids have a lot of ideas about what they want to do with their time. That's a good thing! But it makes it challenging trying to work in all these great ideas while maintaining time for self-direction!
Of course sometimes these cool ideas inspire play and show up in their self-directed time and that's wonderful when it happens. But that takes a while for us, and with the demand avoidance everyone in my family has there's always a bit of suspicion about something new that might take away from self-directed time.
In general, my only trick for buy-in is that I don't suggest they do a thing, I just do it. There is no better way to convince them that something might be worth their effort than to be willing to put in the effort myself. But also, I kind of think DPB may be better suited towards prep for a standardized test with a limited scope and for older learners than generalized math learning for middle grades. It's easy for any kind of recall practice to get overwhelming, and I think that can be an even tougher problem when you aren't using software to manage spacing your repetitions! Though of course that's balanced against the benefits of the tactility of a physical book of problems.
For what it's worth, we're using Alcumus problems in Anki for Algebra and it's going really well. We do edit when a card will be shown again more for math than we do for other topics, but it's still way less overwhelming than a DPB. And I can't get over how comfortable she's gotten with things like negative exponents and simplifying radicals! Plus it's no exaggeration to say that I am now better at algebra than I have ever been in my life despite the fact that I have a PhD in engineering.
I really, really love the hidden wisdom you've embedded within the history memory palace game like a D&D trapdoor under the rug. We really want people to be thinking the intellectual equivalent of "What's under the rug?" much more often.
Oh. That's your cultural bedrock. Not that the world or people are good -- or bad. But mendable.
Ork Ork.
Do you envision this educational model to be possible with only child homeschool students? Or is the synergy of multiple learners not only beneficial but necessary for deep learning?
And... how do I start this with my 8th grader today? And how does it integrate with your 6 years of science? We just created all of the timelines for year one. Would you recommend placing the history events on the same timeline as the science events? Or keep them only in the memory palace? (Again, sorry if you answer all of this in previous posts. I'll go see what I can find!) I really enjoy wrestling through these posts and am excited for each new idea to be shared; but it does feel very much like drinking from a fire hose! I don't know how to keep up or how to practically begin to implement these brilliant ideas. Maybe you could share a couple bullet points of how to start applying one thing today? Something that is accessible, if that's possible? Maybe I'm asking too much. Just thought I'd toss that out there.
We also just started a Deep Practice Book for math and even though I tried to introduce it well, he still just sees it as one more thing to do. So I haven't forced it. (If I understood your post correctly, you don't recommend forcing it.) I can't figure out how to inspire buy-in. It seems like so much of what I've tried to do Egan-style has fallen a little flat because it hinges on a measure of student led curiosity and intentionality. (This includes LiD which I *love*!!) I so badly wanted to impart a deep love of wonder and learning to Zeke but at this point, I just don't know if that's even possible anymore. How can we get past this??
In case a reply from someone else who is doing SiW/LiD/giving this history thing a try and has tried a DPB is at all helpful...
I definitely get the fire hose feeling sometimes! I think one of the hardest things about this kind of thoughtfully curated education is that it brings us face to face with the fact that there are more wonderful things to learn than there is time to learn them and so of course we have to choose only some subset of them. And my kids have a lot of ideas about what they want to do with their time. That's a good thing! But it makes it challenging trying to work in all these great ideas while maintaining time for self-direction!
Of course sometimes these cool ideas inspire play and show up in their self-directed time and that's wonderful when it happens. But that takes a while for us, and with the demand avoidance everyone in my family has there's always a bit of suspicion about something new that might take away from self-directed time.
In general, my only trick for buy-in is that I don't suggest they do a thing, I just do it. There is no better way to convince them that something might be worth their effort than to be willing to put in the effort myself. But also, I kind of think DPB may be better suited towards prep for a standardized test with a limited scope and for older learners than generalized math learning for middle grades. It's easy for any kind of recall practice to get overwhelming, and I think that can be an even tougher problem when you aren't using software to manage spacing your repetitions! Though of course that's balanced against the benefits of the tactility of a physical book of problems.
For what it's worth, we're using Alcumus problems in Anki for Algebra and it's going really well. We do edit when a card will be shown again more for math than we do for other topics, but it's still way less overwhelming than a DPB. And I can't get over how comfortable she's gotten with things like negative exponents and simplifying radicals! Plus it's no exaggeration to say that I am now better at algebra than I have ever been in my life despite the fact that I have a PhD in engineering.