The main issue in schooling is addressed in this wonderful comic by Lynn Johnston. In my book, The WannaDo Curriculum, I make a distinction between “want to do” and “wanna do.” In the former, what you aim for is what it takes to achieve good grades. The latter involves engaging in an activity that children…
Read moreImagining the Unimaginable
In her book Imaginable, Jane McGonigal draws on the latest scientific research in psychology and neuroscience to show us how to train our minds to think the unthinkable and imagine the unimaginable. As a math educator for 50+ years, I find my self thinking more and more about what math educators don’t think (Imagine) enough about. …
Read moreMath via Pi Day Stories is Powerful Stuff
March 13, 2022 Recently I have been thinking about the importance and power of … storytelling in teaching and learning mathematics. Through … storytelling, students can engage in ways that develop a positive mathematical identity in which they see themselves as thinkers and doers of mathematics and as a mathematician. – Trena Wilkerson – President…
Read moreEratosthenes Measures the Earth
Noonday Project Here is a letter that appeared in the AMTNJ (Association of Math Teacher of New Jersey) newsletter in 2010. That’s the last time that CIESE participated in the project. Dear Colleagues: Twice a year I give a shout out to all that can hear about my favorite collaborative project called the Noonday Project…
Read moreRetirement Opens a Window…
Retirement is an opportunity, a new beginning, fresh possibilities … or so they say. But what if you retired in 2007? Isn’t it almost time to wrap it up? Well, the answer is no, because I haven’t crossed off everything on my bucket list. So maybe a bucket list is not a good metaphor for…
Read moreAll about Rigor (Or is it Rigor-mortis?)
Recently President (of NCTM) Trena Wilkerson wrote: Consider these three “Rs” of mathematics: students should engage in rigorous and challenging mathematics that is relevant to their lives and is responsive to their background experiences, cultures, interests, and knowledge.” Math educators seem to love the term rigor, but for 9th and 10th-grade students it scares the…
Read moreWhat I did during the Pandemic
Now that we have a vaccine and there is a light at the end of the Pandemic tunnel, I want to share with you what I did to keep my sanity during this time. I took on the fractions barrier challenge. Let me explain. I was reading an article by Tom Loveless in which he…
Read moreScenes from Dynamic Math Classrooms
June 3, 2021
Read moreMy Trip to Number Town
The problem many people have with school arithmetic [fractions] is that they never get to the meaning stage; it remains forever an abstract game of formal symbols. Keith Devlin, The Math Instinct This is particularly true when students are confronted with fractions. Not only are they overwhelmed by the myriad of rules one has to…
Read moreMicroworld: Green Globs
My all-time favorite piece of software is Graphing Equations and Green Globs. The program has several components but Green Globs is what stole my heart. Figure 11-7 The game is simple to understand. When you start up the novice game, thirteen globs appear randomly scattered on a coordinate grid. (See figure 11-7.) The student’s goal…
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