Group items tagged

"An interesting group participation project for the Manchester Science Fair: growing sunflowers" Includes video on Fibonacci sequences in nature with the example of sunflowers

Motivation and Disposition: Pathways to Learning Mathematics - 73rd Yearbook (2011) Product Description Daniel J. Brahier, Volume Editor and William R. Speer, General Editor "Teaching mathematics is a much broader endeavor than simply helping students to acquire skills and problem-solving strategies. ...NCTM's seventy-third yearbook examines such elements as the demographic composition of a school; the role of movies, television, and the Internet; and nontraditional pedagogy as means of promoting and influencing positive student and teacher dispositions." Of particular interest is Chapter 9 "What Motivates Mathematically Talented Young Women?," which evidently reports on high school girls at a summer camp. Available for .pdf download via purchase, or in a library: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/715171259

Prometheus Books The Glorious Golden Ratio [978-1-61614-423-4] - "For centuries, mathematicians, scientists, artists, and architects have been fascinated by a ratio that is ubiquitous in nature and is commonly found across many cultures. It has been called the "Golden Ratio" because of its prevalence as a design element and its seemingly universal esthetic appeal. From the ratio of certain proportions of the human body and the heliacal structure of DNA to the design of ancient Greek statues and temples as well as modern masterpieces, the Golden Ratio is a key pattern that has wide-ranging and perhaps endless applications and manifestations. What exactly is the Golden Ratio? How was it discovered? Where is it found? These questions and more are thoroughly explained in this engaging tour of one of mathematics' most interesting phenomena. With their talent for elucidating mathematical mysteries, veteran educators and prolific mathematics writers Alfred S. Posamentier and Ingmar Lehmann begin by tracing the appearance of the Golden Ratio throughout history. They demonstrate a variety of ingenious techniques used to construct it and illustrate the many surprising geometric figures in which the Golden Ratio is embedded. They also point out the intriguing relationship between the Golden Ratio and other famous numbers (such as the Fibonacci numbers, Pythagorean triples, and others). They then explore its prevalence in nature as well as in architecture, art, literature, and technology. "

From the abstract: :The first aim of this discussion is to suggest a framework for designing serious games based on game features in commercial games, opinions of fourth graders and their teachers, literary studies, contemporary learning theories, as well as successful and unsuccessful similar endeavours. The second part of this paper describes a concrete example of a maths game based on the proposed framework that implicitly tests math and collaboration skills. The game is made of three components: the game itself, a social network, and a teacher reporting tool. Despite a growing interest in GBL, some teachers are reluctant to use serious games in school. To increase usage of serious games as resource, it is important to equip teachers with information and address their concerns. The paper concludes with the idea that serious games need to be designed well in order to provide the immersion and collaborative active learning that most learning theories recommend."

LOG IN January 24th 9pm ET: http://tinyurl.com/MathFutureEvent Music and mathematics have been linked together for thousands of years, but rarely have students had the opportunity to explore the many connections that exist between them. To try to fill this gap, Mike Thayer of Hyperbolic Guitars is developing a course. At the event, we will discuss the course outline, as well as math and music links in general. All events in the Math Future weekly series: http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/events The recording will be at http://mathfuture.wikispaces.com/HyperbolicGuitarsCourse Event challenge! Help Mike find a resource - a web page, a video, a music piece - to go with one of the topics in the course outline. Full syllabus and details of the outline: http://hyperbolicguitars.wikispaces.com/Math+%26+Music+Course Major topics: What is sound, anyway? The physics of waves The mathematics of waves Resonance Elasticity The generation of sound by "simple" systems The vibrating string The vibrating rod The vibrating plate (e.g., drumhead or cymbal) Open and closed pipes The Helmholtz resonator (--> the vocal chords) White noise, pink noise The concept of "timbre" The perception of sound Human listeners Other "listeners": Digital recording The interaction between the generator and the listener: the science of acoustics What makes sound become music? What does a listener "listen for" in music? Basics of music and musical notation: Musical descriptions Basics of music: Psycho-physical (auditory) descriptions What makes sound "musical" (

An interesting maths site where players must find the value of X in problem using multiplication, division, addition or subtraction. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

Abstract: "This research seeks to look into the design process that promotes the development of an educational computer game that supports teaching and learning processes. The research specifically looks at the design of an educational computer game for teaching and learning of the topic of functions. The topic is essential in the teaching and learning of Mathematics courses such as Discrete Mathematics, Real Analysis and Calculus among others at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) Kenya. The computer game was developed using the Basic Unified process (BUP) which is a streamlined version of the rational unified process (RUP). This is an object oriented methodology mostly used for small projects with few end users. Due to the few numbers of end users we used interview method of data collection to gather requirements for the computer game. A paper prototype was used to validate the requirements. Use cases were used for both analysis and design of the game while Class diagrams and activity diagrams were purely used for the design of the game. Owens' six top level design anatomy aided in the design of the computer game. The overall computer game design was based on Crawfords' computer game design sequence model. The well designed and developed game met all its user requirements and was able to facilitate the teaching and learning of functions to Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Computer Science students who were taking Discrete mathematics in their first year of study at JKUATs' Taita/Taveta campus. Development of heuristics for measuring interest, fun and motivation are recommendations given to aid in the evaluation of user satisfaction of educational computer games."

This Flickr group (which I just started) has "bad graphs" which I am collecting as a resource for math educators. Please apply to join the group if you are interested in adding your own resources to it. Otherwise, feel free to use the graphs and data visualizations we've collected.

Some great (and free!) resources for teachers interested in mathematical puzzles for younger students.

"The focus of this digitally mediated learning activity centers on the mathematics department in the Easton and Redding (ER9) school district in Connecticut. Currently, ER9 teachers have technology in the classroom, but many teachers have expressed uncertainty about how to implement this technology in their classrooms. Based on the foundations of the constructivist learning theory, math teachers will learn how technology fits into the student learning cycle. Interested teachers will form a community of practice (CoP) to learn about and apply engaging technology in the classroom. Some technologies discussed include game-based learning, mobile/Web 2.0 apps such as Prezi, Animation and Edmodo. As a result of this technology CoP, teachers will learn to implement at least one new technology into their classroom and engage in communication between CoP members using MOODLE. "

A group of educators sharing interesting resources around the teaching and learning of mathematics.

In brief, it contrasts the modern understanding of causality (and the mathematics this presupposes) with the more recent, perhaps in a sense "postmodern" understanding of causality (again with a concomitant mathematical model) and on the basis of this distinction, draws some interesting parallels between economics and natural events.

Very interesting. Remember that to convert a:b odds (against, which is what the folks laying the bets will give) to probabiilty you take p=b/(a+b). This site lists the Yankees as 2:1 to win the American League, so if you think the probability is greater than 1/3 you should take the bet (theoretically speaking; please obey all applicable laws!). The Red Sox are 7:4, giving p=4/11.

Darren challenged us to identify topics of interest last month and I responded that I would love to share some algebraic reasoning information.

interweaving content and pedagogy in teaching and learning to teach knowing and using mathematics.pdf

Interweaving Content and Pedagogy in Teaching and Learning to Teach: Knowing and Using Mathematics

A systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 identified more than a thousand empirical studies of online learning. Analysts screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes, (c) used a rigorous research design, and (d) provided adequate information to calculate an effect size. As a result of this screening, 51 independent effects were identified that could be subjected to meta-analysis. The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. The difference between student outcomes for online and face-to-face classes-measured as the difference between treatment and control means, divided by the pooled standard deviation-was larger in those studies contrasting conditions that blended elements of online and face-to-face instruction with conditions taught entirely face-to-face. Analysts noted that these blended conditions often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students in control conditions. This finding suggests that the positive effects associated with blended learning should not be attributed to the media, per se. An unexpected finding was the small number of rigorous published studies contrasting online and face-to-face learning conditions for K-12 students. In light of this small corpus, caution is required in generalizing to the K-12 population because the results are derived for the most part from studies in other settings (e.g., medical training, higher education). ix

A systematic search of the research literature from 1996 through July 2008 identified more than a thousand empirical studies of online learning. Analysts screened these studies to find those that (a) contrasted an online to a face-to-face condition, (b) measured student learning outcomes, (c) used a rigorous research design, and (d) provided adequate information to calculate an effect size. As a result of this screening, 51 independent effects were identified that could be subjected to meta-analysis. ***The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.*** The difference between student outcomes for online and face-to-face classes-measured as the difference between treatment and control means, divided by the pooled standard deviation-was larger in those studies contrasting conditions that blended elements of online and face-to-face instruction with conditions taught entirely face-to-face. Analysts noted that these blended conditions often included additional learning time and instructional elements not received by students in control conditions. This finding suggests that the positive effects associated with blended learning should not be attributed to the media, per se. An unexpected finding was the small number of rigorous published studies contrasting online and face-to-face learning conditions for K-12 students. In light of this small corpus, caution is required in generalizing to the K-12 population because the results are derived for the most part from studies in other settings (e.g., medical training, higher education). ix

An encyclopedia of current mathematics knowledge. Interesting recreations.

It would be interesting to build a set a links to similar research results as this and discuss the implications this has for what we do as math teachers in our classrooms.

New research from Vanderbilt University has found students benefit more from being taught the concepts behind math problems rather than the exact procedures to solve the problems. The findings offer teachers new insights on how best to shape math instruction to have the greatest impact on student learning.

This just confirms what all the other research has been saying. The issue is getting all of us who didn't learn math conceptually, and who were not trained in college conceptually, to teach this way.

This summer we're looking to talk with a few math teachers to evaluate our tools so we can make improvements for the new school year. Interested? please reach out to us here: http://www.doodle.com/4fi837mk5s3gitk8#calendar Glean Learning Tools are free science, math and information literacy teaching tools produced by Public Learning Media, Inc., an education technology 501(c)3 nonprofit.