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"Mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki of Kyoto University in Japan has released a 500-page proof of the abc conjecture, which proposes a relationship between whole numbers - a 'Diophantine' problem. The abc conjecture, proposed independently by David Masser and Joseph Oesterle in 1985, might not be as familiar to the wider world as Fermat's Last Theorem, but in some ways it is more significant. "The abc conjecture, if proved true, at one stroke solves many famous Diophantine problems, including Fermat's Last Theorem," says Dorian Goldfeld, a mathematician at Columbia University in New York. "If Mochizuki's proof is correct, it will be one of the most astounding achievements of mathematics of the twenty-first century." See additional commentary at: http://bit-player.org/2012/the-abc-game?utm_src=HN2

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

Project based learning using all or any of the three online resources offers a dynamic approach to teaching in which students explore real-world problems and challenges.

A good collection of maths questions and visual blocks to solve them. Topics include addition, multiplication, fractions and ratios. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/maths

This great maths site has an amazing collection of maths self-marking problem solving questions. Search by age level or topic. This covers both Primary and Secondary levels. Topics include numbers, geometry, algebra, data analysis, probability and more. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

Math calculators are very helpful for students in solving their math problems. From algebra to geometry, trigonometry to statistics, these calculators are very helpful. Teachers and Parents also get much help from these calculators if they don't find the solution to some difficult math problems.

Avoid Hard Work gives a playful view on ten powerful problem-solving techniques. These techniques were first published by the Mathematical Association of America to help high school students with advanced math courses. We adapted the ten techniques and the sample problems for much younger children. The book is for parents, teachers, math circle leaders, and others who work with children ages three to ten. It will come out in the Fall of 2016.

"we are asked to solve problems instead of also creating them"

from the abstract: "Mathematics is now at a remarkable in exion point, with new technology radically extending the power and limits of individuals. Crowd- sourcing pulls together diverse experts to solve problems; symbolic computation tackles huge routine calculations; and computers check proofs too long and complicated for humans to comprehend. The Study of Mathematical Practice is an emerging interdisciplinary eld which draws on philoso- phy and social science to understand how mathematics is produced. Online mathematical activity provides a novel and rich source of data for empirical investigation of mathematical practice - for example the community question-answering system mathover ow contains around 40,000 mathe- matical conversations, and polymath collaborations provide transcripts of the process of discovering proofs. Our preliminary investigations have demonstrated the importance of \soft" aspects such as analogy and creativity, alongside deduction and proof, in the production of mathematics, and have given us new ways to think about the roles of people and machines in creating new mathematical knowledge. We discuss further investigation of these resources and what it might reveal. Crowdsourced mathematical activity is an example of a \social machine", a new paradigm, identi- ed by Berners-Lee, for viewing a combination of people and computers as a single problem-solving entity, and the subject of major international research endeavours. We outline a future research agenda for mathematics social machines, a combination of people, computers, and mathematical archives to create and apply mathematics, with the potential to change the way people do mathe- matics, and to transform the reach, pace, and impact of mathematics research."

From the abstract: "is research develops around a technological intervention intended to transform a peer produced reference resource into a peer produced learning environment. An early Web 2.0 community for mathematics, PlanetMath.org, will henceforth become a mathematical practicum, and a laboratory for learning science."

Each day of the school year I present my students with an estimation challenge. I love helping my students improve both their number sense and problem solving skills. I'd like to share the estimation challenges with you and your students. Here's a handout for your students. Happy Estimating!

I'm rubbish at Maths' are words that regularly come out of mouth during my adult life. This fixed mindset is deep rooted. When faced with a Maths challenge I have immediate flashbacks to those bottom set Maths lessons where everyone else were given more complicated problems with bigger numbers to solve. I may have a fixed mindset in terms of my own capabilities, but I believe every child has the capacity to be a fantastic Mathematician, if they are given the opportunity and are encouraged to have the belief in the 'power of yet'.

A Kickstarter project for a children's math and science-oriented detective story: "This is the made up story about two very real girls - Ada, the world's first computer programmer, and Mary, the world's first science fiction author - caught up in a steampunk world of hot-air balloons and steam engines, jewel thieves and mechanical contraptions. For readers 8-12. "This is a pro-math, pro-science, pro-history and pro-literature adventure novel for and about girls, who use their education to solve problems and catch a jewel thief. Ada and Mary encounter real historical characters, such as Percy Shelley, Charles Babbage, Michael Faraday, and Charles Dickens - people whom the girls actually knew. If Jane Austen wrote about zeppelins and brass goggles, this would be the book."

Video games are hard, and that's official Super Mario, Donkey Kong and other classic games belong to class of hard mathematical puzzles, and could be used to solve real-world problems IF YOU have ever struggled to complete classic Nintendo games, don't feel bad?- they are officially difficult.

"a weekly activity for students of grades 8 to 12 and post-secondary students. The activities are something beyond classroom traditional in-class and curriculum-based learning. Presentations by Circle members or by invited mathematicians and scientists, discussion about specific topics and solving math problems, puzzles and games; review math/science history and preparation for maths contests and Olympiads are the main activities in the GMC."

Study of 6th graders in China using virtual Tangram puzzle to improve collaboration and learning of geometric concepts and problem-solving

Today's math curriculum is teaching students to expect -- and excel at -- paint-by-numbers classwork, robbing kids of a skill more important than solving problems: formulating them. At TEDxNYED, Dan Meyer shows classroom-tested math exercises that prompt students to stop and think.

"Kill Math is my umbrella project for techniques that enable people to model and solve meaningful problems of quantity using concrete representations and intuition-guided exploration. In the long term, I hope to develop a widely-usable, insight-generating alternative to symbolic math."