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Have you ever wanted to create short "how to" video for your students to use for homework, remembering facts, and solving math problems. How often have your students stated, "I could not complete the homework assignment, because I could not remember the steps and no one could help me." Well the answer is to create a screencast or video for posting on your class wiki or blog for students to view at home or anywhere else they have web access.

LOGIN Wednesday February 15 at 3pm Eastern US time: http://tinyurl.com/math20event During the event, Dr. Keith Still of SaferCrowds.com will introduce his Crowd Sciences work and explain the relevance of mathematics in it: "If you don't do the maths, you could end up in court on a manslaughter charge!" All events in the Math Future weekly series: http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/events The recording will be at http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/CrowdSciences Pose questions and comments for Keith before the event Math Future wiki: http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/message/list/CrowdSciences LinkedIn group: http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&gid=33207&type=member&item=94871153&qid=b29a6dbc-6474-425f-865a-b319bd33dcb9 Email group: http://groups.google.com/group/mathfuture/browse_thread/thread/931328aab6d87b03 How to join Follow this link at the time of the event: http://tinyurl.com/math20event Wednesday, February 15 2012 we will meet online at noon Pacific, 3 pm Eastern time. WorldClock for your time zone. Click "OK" and "Accept" several times as your browser installs the software. When you see Session Log-In, enter your name and click the "Login" button If this is your first time, come a few minutes earlier to check out the technology. Crowd Modelling + Crowd Monitoring + Crowd Management = Safer Crowds Crowd Modelling is the scientific approach to the development of safe, robust, crowd management plans. This can be achieved without the need for expensive, complex, time consuming computer simulations. In simple terms Crowd Modelling is understanding how, where, when and why crowds arrive, move around and leave an events/venues. The majority of this can be accomplished using tried, tested and simple to apply methodologies. "Keith Still is what I term an intuitive mathematician. He is one of the most creative and original thinkers that I know. He adds drive and determination, as well as considerable intellectual power to any group of which h

How many times have you prepared an updated or new dynamic math or science PowerPoint or Keynote presentation for class and it would not open in school? Also, how many times has it happened to your students when it's time to give a class presentation? Now you need to postpone their presentation to another day, disrupting even the best planning.

LOG IN February 22, 2012 at 2pm Eastern US time: http://tinyurl.com/math20event During the event, John Mason will lead a conversation about multiplication as scaling, and answer questions about his books, projects and communities. All events in the Math Future weekly series: http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/events The recording will be at: http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/JohnMason Your time zone: http://bit.ly/wQYN1Y Event challenge! What good multiplication tasks about scaling do you know? Share links and thoughts! John writes about elastic multiplication: "It is often said that 'multiplication is repeated addition' when what is meant is that 'repeated addition is an instance of multiplication'. I have been developing some tasks which present 'scaling as multiplication' based around familiarity with elastic bands. Participants would benefit from having an elastic (rubber) band to hand which they have cut so as to make a strip; wider is better than thinner if you have a choice." About John Mason John Mason has been teaching mathematics ever since he was asked to tutor a fellow student when he was fifteen. In college he was at first unofficial tutor, then later an official tutor for mathematics students in the years behind him, while tutoring school students as well. After a BSc at Trinity College, Toronto in Mathematics, and an MSc at Massey College, Toronto, he went to Madison Wisconsin where he encountered Polya's film 'Let Us Teach Guessing', and completed a PhD in Combinatorial Geometry. The film released a style of teaching he had experienced at high school from his mathematics teacher Geoff Steel, and his teaching changed overnight. His first appointment was at the Open University, which involved among other things the design and implementation of the first mathematics summer school (5000 students over 11 weeks on three sites in parallel). He called upon his experience of being taught, to institute active-problem-solving sessions, w

Mathematics has a reading protocol all its own, and just as we learn to read literature, we should learn to read mathematics. Students need to learn how to read mathematics, in the same way they learn how to read a novel or a poem, listen to music, or view a painting.

"Educational and developmental psychologists have tried to understand how skills and motivation are linked to academic achievement. While research supports ties between individuals' concepts of their abilities and their achievement, we lack a complete picture of how these relations develop from childhood to adolescence. A new longitudinal study looked at how youths' self-concepts are linked to their actual academic achievement in maths and reading from middle childhood to adolescence. The study found that students' self-concepts of their abilities in these two academic domains play an important role in motivating their achievements over time and across levels of achievement."

The popular educational portal www.kidsworldfun.com is organizing a unique Little Champs Video Contest for preschoolers (3-6 years old) around the world. The contest intends to discover the very young bright stars around the world who are exceptional in a variety of activities such as reading, writing, singing, dancing, doing chores around home, playing with friends, gardening, and so on. Parents, who are interested, should make a video portfolio of their child, of about 3-5 minutes duration, stringing together the various activities he/she engages in at different times, in natural situations. The winners will be selected based on how well and happily the child engages in the task, how independently he/she is able to perform, how much effort is put in, and how skilled he/she is, in each activity engaged in. The terms and conditions of the contest are given at http://www.kidsworldfun.com/video-contest/ The Little Champs Video Contest is the second international contest that the KidsWorldFun is organizing, the first being the prestigious International Short Story Contest for School Children that debuted in 2016.

In this lesson, students learn how to measure the area of the tire footprint on a car and to find air pressure using a tire gauge. Students then find the weight of the car using their fraction multiplication skills. Learning Objectives   Students will: Estimate weight of a large object Use a ruler and a tire gauge to take measurements Collect and record data Review square units of measure Calculate area by multiplying fractions Materials   Strips of poster board Ruler Tire gauge How Much Does a Car Weigh? Activity Sheet Computer with internet connection Car Instructional Plan In preparation for this lesson, place a car in a safe lcation for the students to measure the tire footprints and pressure. In case of bad weather, find a covered location. Be sure to measure the tire footprint and the pressure (in PSI) of each tire ahead of time, so that you will be able check the accuracy of students' measurements. Also, check the accuracy of your calculation by comparing to it to the weight of the car listed on the sticker inside the driver's door or in the vehicle manual. By the end of the day, data may change because air has leaked out of the tires while students were using the tire gauge. For safety, check the tires before driving home.

Encouraging students to use critical thinking is more than an extension activity in science and math lessons, it is the basis of true learning. Teaching students how to think critically helps them move beyond basic comprehension and rote memorization. They shift to a new level of increased awareness when calculating, analyzing, problem solving, and evaluating.

"Italian psychologist Geatano Kanizsa first described this optical illusion in 1955 as a subjective or illusory contour illusion. The study of such optical illusions has led to an understanding of how the brain and eyes perceive optical information and has been used considerably by artists and designers alike. They show the power of human imagination in filling in the gaps to make implied constructions in our own minds. Kanizsa figures and similar illusions are a really useful way to encourage learners to 'say what they see' and to explain how they see it. It offers a chance for others to become aware of the different views available in a diagram and share their own thoughts without the 'danger' of being wrong; many people see different things."

"Ever wondered how to make science or math flash cards for students to use with their mobile devices? This typically comes about because finding science and math flash cards specific to a particular concept, topic area, or unit is difficult. Often when appropriate flash cards are found, they are too expensive or need modification. Technological advances have uncomplicated the process of making tailor made free flash cards for students."

Writing in math is an excellent way to determine if students' understand or do not understand the math they are learning about. Allowing students to explain how they solved a math problem, how they developed a formula to solve a problem, or how they applied a math concept requires critical thinking.

Curious how social media might benefit you as a math teacher? Check out mathtwitterblogosphere, which encourages math teachers to tweet and blog in order to "get your own creative juices flowing" and participate in a "world-class faculty lounge with colleagues who care about what they do." Come see profiles of math teachers who use blogs and Twitter, learn about "how to take the leap" with those social media, and find recommendations of tweeps and bloggers to follow, categorized by academic level, or interests such as arts and craft in the math classroom games and gamification in math interdisciplinary Work modeling approach to teaching standard-based grading projects and rich tasks technology in the math classroom

An interactive White Board (IWB) or SMART Board has the potential to deliver content better than traditional methods of teaching. Why? Because it provides multi-media functional interaction across audio, video, and computer media. It is also ideal for visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners. These qualities of an IWB also promote the dynamic delivery of content (if used to its full potential) in an engaging manner, which allows students to interact with science or math content their self. Examples include: * data manipulation * responding to data * even creating data So with all these attributes - "How are interactive white boards unsuccessfully used in science and math classrooms?" For the most part - not effectively!

The NRICH Project aims to enrich the mathematical experiences of all learners. To support this aim, members of the NRICH team work in a wide range of capacities, including providing professional development for teachers wishing to embed rich mathematical tasks into everyday classroom practice. More information on many of our other activities can be found here. On our website you will find thousands of our free mathematics enrichment materials (problems, articles and games) for teachers and learners from ages 5 to 19 years. All the resources are designed to develop subject knowledge, problem-solving and mathematical thinking skills. The website is updated with new material on the first day of every month. For guidance on how to find the right resources for you, go to the Help section of the site.

From the abstract (full text requires subscription or purchase): "Though cooperative learning has been a topic of considerable interest in educational research, there has been little study specific to learning in the mathematics content area of geometry. This paper seeks to address that gap through a design experiment featuring a novel small-group computing environment for supporting student learning about quadrilaterals. In this design, each student controls a unique point in a shared geometric space, and those points are linked such that a group of four students collectively forms a quadrilateral. We first present results from pre- and post-measures to show how the students learned from the activities and developed in terms of geometric reasoning. We then present three episodes, elaborated with the notion of appropriation, to explain how students took up ways of using the technological tools and of talking about geometric concepts from one another in the interactive environment. Our study found that students achieved learning gains in this novel environment, that the environment provided rich opportunities for peer interaction around geometric objects, and that student learning opportunities and interactions were characterized by processes of appropriating ways of talking about and using software features."

Math has always been easy for me but it wasn't until I started taking classes to get my teaching certificate that I came to truly love math. Both my mom and dad loved to play card and board games. They taught my sister and I many mathematical concepts while playing these games without even realizing it. Puzzles and patterns, statistics and probability were daily conversations. Then came school. Math was nothing but numbers written on paper. Easy to do but very boring and seemingly unrelated to life. Breezing through each worksheet, page of math problem and even finishing the 7th grade math book mid-year, math became a hated subject to be put aside as quickly as possible. I vowed that the day I graduated from high school would be the last day I ever took a math class. I succeeded in that goal all through college but when I wanted to get my Elementary Teaching Certificate the state of Vermont had other ideas. So I signed up for a summer class in teaching math.

Why use Web 2.0 tools in science and math classes? The primary reason is they facilitate access to input and interaction with content through reading, writing, listening, and speaking. These tools offer enormous advantages for science and math teachers, in terms of helping their students learn using Web 2.0 tools. For example: * Most of these tools can be edited from any computer connected to the Internet. Teachers can add, edit and delete information even during class time. * Students learn how to use these tools for academic purposes and, at the same time, can transfer their use to their personal lives and future professional careers. * RSS feeds allow students to access all the desired research information on one page. * Students learn to be autonomous in their learning process.

1,000 Scientists in 1,000 Days volunteer program announced for scientists, mathematicians, engineers: "We seek scientists who are willing to volunteer to advise on curricula, answer a classroom's questions, or visit a school-for instance, to do a lab or to talk about what you do. How much you choose to participate will be up to you."