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"While many Canadian educators struggle to find the solution to students' declining math scores, there's one expert who says we may be looking at the problem the wrong way. Sir Ken Robinson - education guru, author and adviser - says relentless testing and the push for standardized scores are destroying students' imagination and talent. He argues that schools are stifling instead of nurturing kids' creativity. Sir Ken's 2006 TED talk, How Schools Kill Creativity, has had 47 million views and become one of the most popular talks in history. He was in Montreal this week for the Einstein Youth Forum, and sat down for an interview with The Globe and Mail."

"It's all over the news: STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education ranks among the country's most pressing needs. Countless news stories talk about the renewed national concern with educating students in the STEM fields, and policy initiatives such as Common Core push forward with new attempts to fill that gap. But just what is causing this emphasis? And what can be done to solve the problem?"

" I heard a great talk a few months ago. It was Conrad Wolfram (probably one of the world's leading mathematicians) who suggested, that we should stop teaching our kids maths. Whoah! He said, and I'm paraphrasing, we needed to teach them computational thinking instead. What is that? He said every problem needs breaking apart, exploding it into its parts - if we are to begin to properly solve them. And better still that we explain to kids how to put that idea into practice. Explain to them, for example, that to make their bike go faster they might figure out how much bigger the peddle wheel needs to be than than the one on the back wheel. According to Wikipedia computational thinking is an iterative process based on three stages: 1. Problem formulation (abstraction) 2. Solution expression (automation) 3. Solution execution and evaluation (analyses) That REALLY works for me."

"These talks are here to set the record straight and illuminate the unexpected ways formulas and fractions influence everything, from love and war to origami and coral reefs."

"Un projet collaboratif qui a pour but de recueillir des images intéressantes qui peuvent servir comme point de départ pour des jasettes mathématiques  au sujet des nombres. ​ A collaborative project dedicated to gathering interesting images  ​to be used as a launching point for Number Talks."

"Valentine's Day creates a lot of excitement for students, and of course, there are plenty of teachable moments around the day. You might cover the history of the holiday, some V-Day-themed math, or a fun, heart-shaped art project. The opportunities are endless. But Valentine's Day is also a great time to talk with your kids about compassion and caring."

"Having integrated coding into my math classes, many teachers have asked me how to get started.  I am happy to help.  In talking to many teachers and parents, it seems there is considerable misunderstanding of how coding really fits the elementary school classroom.  Hopefully these points can help us out and generate discussion."

"It's all over the news: STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education ranks among the country's most pressing needs. Countless news stories talk about the renewed national concern with educating students in the STEM fields, and policy initiatives such as Common Core push forward with new attempts to fill that gap. But just what is causing this emphasis? And what can be done to solve the problem?"

"The Maker Movement has proved itself to be a valuable component of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education ecosystem. The underlying philosophy of this movement involves open-ended creativity, development of critical thinking and intellectual flexibility, as well as instill confidence and a sense of accomplishment. The blueprints for building a makerspace are fairly straightforward, and usually incorporates a few key items like 3D printers, sewing machines, power tools, soldering gear, and maybe a laser cutter. But is it as simple as "build it and they will come?" To help answer the question of "So you have a makerspace, now what?" Jaymes Dec, middle school technology teacher and founder of NYC Makery, served up some valuable advice at our recent SOWING Circle Meetup (SOWING stands for Science Outreach Working to Inspire the Next Generation, and is a gathering for anyone who works as a STEM educator to share resources and brainstorm ideas). In his talk, Jaymes outlined a series of questions to help educators maximize the impact of making in STEM."

"I will be sharing about our Pinball Machine Mayhem that is happening in our Technology and Innovation class. We started with a brainstorming session on the process this week. We began with the Project Idea phase: This is where we explained that they would be making pinball machines. How they made them or what they used is completely up to them during this process. Next we moved into the Prototype Design students during this phase was given a blank piece of paper about the size of the actual pinball machines that they will make. The goal here was for them to start to apply the different pieces of their pinball machines to this document. What was incredible about this whole process was before we released the students to go work we asked them what subjects do they think will be covered throughout this process. Right away hands went up and students started sharing. Math - Area, Perimeter, Height, Length, Pythagorean Theorem to find the slope of their machine. ELA - Research, Creating a story for their pinball machine Social Studies - History of the pinball machine, Research on different pinball machines Science - Volume, Friction, Gravity, Art - Theme of their board, Creative look of their pinball machine. Tech Ed - Lights, sensors, buzzers Makerspace - Students talked about using little bits, robotic kits, makey makey board, along with legos and Knex's"

"Leaving a high-flying job in consulting, Angela Lee Duckworth took a job teaching math to seventh graders in a New York public school. She quickly realized that IQ wasn't the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Here, she explains her theory of "grit" as a predictor of success."

"Watching a Red Sox game or listening to one on the radio is one of my favorite things to do on a warm summer night like we're having tonight in Maine. During the pregame show this evening the broadcasters were talking about the launch angle of some of the homeruns hit by Red Sox players this year. That discussion of launch angle triggered my memory of some resources that I've shared over the years regarding the math and science of baseball. "

"This approach to teaching critical thinking (CT) makes use of the 'descriptive-not-prescriptive' principle I introduced in this article for Innovate My School. In other words: teach by showing them (the students) what they already do rather than telling them what they should be doing but aren't. Though I will talk about philosophy sessions, as that is my background, the principles and procedure that you will find outlined here apply to any teaching context where the teaching of CT skills will be of value, whether maths, English or P.E."

Great monthly feature from the NY Times & American Statistical Association - What's going on in this graph? A new graph posted each month, together with visible thinking strategies, and the possibility of joining for an online (moderated) discussion to talk about predictions.

"Well, what if I told you that Wolfram|Alpha also makes desktop PC and mobile applications that, for all of the notoriety that their's websites received, I've hardly ever heard anyone talk about? And what if I told you that most of these apps were specifically designed with certain subjects in mind, such as statistics, geography, and chemistry? I don't know about you, but I'd be intrigued!"

"Words are the primary tools we use to convey meanings , of course there are non verbal tools as well but particularly in formal educational settings like schools and classrooms, words take the lion share of our language.  Can you imagine yourself delivering a lesson with no words in it ? will it work? Well Peterson has an answer." Peterson is a guy who used to have dyslexia when he was young and he did not learn how to read till he was in grade five. As an adult now, he designed some great applications to help teachers teach students without having to say a word. These are basically interactive learning games based on formative feedback. Watch the 8 minutes video to see the revolution Peterson triggered by the use of his free-language teaching approach. Enjoy

"This week I'd like to talk about a topic that has been a focus in my role as an Instructional Coach this past year - that of mathematical thinking, reasoning and proving. I supported teachers in my schools in these areas and it has been great to see students develop and demonstrate their mathematical thinking, aligned with learning goals and success criteria. When students reason and prove in mathematics, they are explaining their thinking and providing the evidence in a systematic manner using a variety of representations. Many times, it is difficult to understand what a student is showing in his/her work. Before I provide some suggestions, we need to understand what reasoning actually is; what is reasoning?"