Activities, Writings, and Videos by Debra K. Borkovitz
I have never rehearsed the first five minutes of class as many times as I did last summer. Wheelock College, where I’d taught for twenty-five years, had just merged with Boston University. At Wheelock I led the math program and … Read More
Last year I wanted to incorporate more quizzes and individual feedback into my college mathematics courses. My classes are inquiry-based, where students often work in groups solving challenging problems in a variety of ways. Most of my students were prospective … Read More
Note: Spoiler free, and you don’t have to have watched the series to read the post. I just finished watching Last Chance U, a new documentary series screening on Netflix, which follows the 2015 football season of the East Mississippi … Read More
As I write, my partner is most of the way across the country helping care for her mother, who is gravely ill; a week ago someone from hospice said she had a week or two to live. My partner’s daughter … Read More
Last week I read an excerpt in the Boston Globe from the blog post, “How to Improve Boston Public Schools,” by Nicholas C. Donohue, president of the Nellie Mae Educational foundation. The post focused on four items – increasing expectations, … Read More
Fifth in a Series. First one is here. When I was at MIT, it seemed like hardly anyone there was interested in teaching. My advisor told me that mathematicians viewed teaching as akin to golf: an unrelated side-interest. The teaching … Read More
Fourth in a series. First one is here. In yesterday’s post, I wrote about how the Creative Programming MOOC helped me realize that I really like programming. To my students, colleagues, and others in my life, this revelation must come as “kind … Read More
Third in a series. First is here. My second MOOC, Creative Programming for Digital Media and Mobile Apps, started about a week after the Mechanics ReView MOOC, and at first it seemed a joke in comparison. There were about eight … Read More
Second in a series. First is here. The first MOOC I started, Mechanics ReView, was originally developed at MIT as a short three week course for students who didn’t do well in their regular introductory Newtonian Mechanics Course (generally the … Read More
Note: I have many more ideas for writings about education than I actually ever complete or share, due to my inclination to make everything part of a bigger and bigger picture, as well as my perfectionism. I am experimenting in … Read More