The Mathematics Word Wall was developed by Michele S. Weiner, Regional Center
II Instructional Supervisor. Teachers who attended Regional Center II's
mathematics inservices received their own copy. There have been additional
requests from teachers, who did not attend, to receive a copy. Therefore, we have
attached a copy of the Mathematics Word Wall to be used as a resource in the
classroom.
"Street-Fighting Mathematics:
The Art of Educated Guessing and Opportunistic Problem Solving" by
Sanjoy Mahajan, published in 2010. "Mahajan describes six tools: dimensional analysis, easy cases, lumping, picture proofs, successive approximation, and reasoning by analogy. Illustrating each tool with numerous examples, he carefully separates the tool-the general principle-from the particular application so that the reader can most easily grasp the tool itself to use on problems of particular interest." Available as a free download (Creative Commons License), .pdf): http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/full_pdfs/Street-Fighting_Mathematics.pdf
abstract: "A large number of studies carried out on pupils aged 8-14 have shown
that teachable agent (TA) based games are beneficial for learning. The present pi-
oneering study aimed to initiate research looking at whether TA based games can
be used as far down as preschool age. Around the age of four, theory of mind
(ToM) is under development and it is not unlikely that a fully developed ToM is
necessary to benefit from a TA's socially engaging characteristics. 10 preschool
children participated in an experiment of playing a mathematics game. The partic-
ipants playing a TA-version of the game engaged socially with the TA and were
not disturbed by his presence. Thus, this study unveil exciting possibilities for
further research of the hypothesised educational benefits in store for preschoolers
with regard to play-and-learn games employing TAs."
This site has a good collection of Maths, English, Science & Social Studies PDF worksheets and online interactive resources to use with your class.
http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Cross+Curricular
From the abstract: "This research examined the effects of the objectifying gaze on math performance, interaction motivation, body surveillance, body
shame, and body dissatisfaction. In an experiment, undergraduate participants (67 women and 83 men) received an objectifying
gaze during an interaction with a trained confederate of the other sex. As hypothesized, the objectifying gaze caused decrements
in women'smath performance but notmen's. Interestingly, the objectifying gaze also increased women's, but notmen's,motivation
to engage in subsequent interactions with their partner. Finally, the objectifying gaze did not influence body surveillance, body
shame, or body dissatisfaction forwomen or men. One explanation for themath performance and interaction motivation findings is
stereotype threat. To the degree that the objectifying gaze arouses stereotype threat, math performance may decrease because it
conveys that women's looks are valued over their other qualities. Furthermore, interaction motivation may increase because
stereotype threat arouses belonging uncertainty or concerns about social connections. As a result, the objectifying gazemay trigger
a vicious cycle in which women underperform but continue to interact with the people who led them to underperform in the first
place. Implications for long-term consequences of the objectifying gaze and directions for future research are discussed." (Full text available online (.pdf) )for now) ) (Winner of the 2011 Georgia Babladelis Best Paper Award)
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
"126 page free downloadable PDF book for grade 4-7 teachers showing how KenKen puzzles can turn mathematical problem solving into fun and how student motivation can be dramatically increased.
About"
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: "ew innovations by math-
ematicians themselves are starting to harness the power of
social computation to create new modes of mathematical
production. We study the effectiveness of one such system,
and make proposals for enhancement, drawing on AI and
computer based mathematics. We analyse the content of a
sample of questions and responses in the community ques-
tion answering system for research mathematicians,
math-
overflow
. We find that
mathoverflow
is very effective, with
90% of our sample of questions answered completely or in
part. A typical response is an informal dialogue, allowing
error and speculation, rather than rigorous mathematical
argument: 37% of our sample discussions acknowledged er-
ror. Responses typically present information known to the
respondent, and readily checked by other users: thus the
effectiveness of
mathoverflow
comes from information shar-
ing. We conclude that extending and the power and reach of
mathoverflow
through a combination of people and machines
raises new challenges for artificial intelligence and compu
ta-
tional mathematics, in particular how to handle error, anal
-
ogy and informal reasoning."
Create an interactive online lesson with this brilliant site. Upload and curate all the resources for a lesson in one place and access them with one click. The site works with Office files, PDFs, flash files, small videos, images and internet links and even connects to Google Drive and Dropbox. Then simply share the link with anyone who need to use view it.
http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Planning+%26+Assessment
A description of mathematicians' and other scientists recent boycott of Elsevier publishing for its high prices and practices to hinder open distribution of scientific knowledge, as well as a comparison of scholarly mathematics journals pricing among major publishers, and introduction to an ongoing movement of mathematicians organized to fix a "broken" scholarly publishing system