Group items tagged

"Hart uses music notation, a Möbius strip, and backwards Bach to explain space-time"

Published by University of Chicago Press, July 2012. "Math and science hold powerful places in contemporary society, setting the foundations for entry into some of the most robust and highest-paying industries. However, effective math and science education is not equally available to all students, with some of the poorest students-those who would benefit most-going egregiously underserved. This ongoing problem with education highlights one of the core causes of the widening class gap. While this educational inequality can be attributed to a number of economic and political causes, in Empowering Science and Mathematics Education in Urban Communities, Angela Calabrese Barton and Edna Tan demonstrate that it is augmented by a consistent failure to integrate student history, culture, and social needs into the core curriculum. They argue that teachers and schools should create hybrid third spaces-neither classroom nor home-in which underserved students can merge their personal worlds with those of math and science. A host of examples buttress this argument: schools where these spaces have been instituted now provide students not only an immediate motivation to engage the subjects most critical to their future livelihoods but also the broader math and science literacy necessary for robust societal engagement. A unique look at a frustratingly understudied subject, Empowering Science and Mathematics Education pushes beyond the idea of teaching for social justice and into larger questions of how and why students participate in math and science. " Excerpts in Google Books

A great space invaders addition game where players shoot the space ship with the correct answer from adding one or two digit numbers together. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

by David Berlinski, published January 2013. "In The King of Infinite Space, renowned mathematics writer David Berlinski provides a concise homage to this elusive mathematician and his staggering achievements. Berlinski shows that, for centuries, scientists and thinkers from Copernicus to Newton to Einstein have relied on Euclid's axiomatic system, a method of proof still taught in classrooms around the world. Euclid's use of elemental logic-and the mathematical statements he and others built from it-have dramatically expanded the frontiers of human knowledge. The King of Infinite Space presents a rich, accessible treatment of Euclid and his beautifully simple geometric system, which continues to shape the way we see the world."

"Nasa's Voyager spacecraft have enthralled everyone with their exploits on the edge of the Solar System, but their launch in 1977 was only possible because of some clever maths and the persistence of a PhD student who worked out how to slingshot probes into deep space".

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."

"Complicated mathematics presented in a generally understandable way Examples from everyday life are mathematized Many examples presented with a good sense of humor Small riddles and conjuring tricks garantee an entertaining reading Imagine that you've finally found a parking space after a long and harrowing search, but are now encountering some difficulty in trying to enter this space."

A space themed perimeter maths game. Surround the spaceships with your rectangle to make them yours. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

Play space invaders and save the world by using your knowledge of place value with this good flash game. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

A great space-themed 2D-shape maths game. Fly your spaceship into some shapes to collect them and blast the rest to pieces. All in the name of maths of course! http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

A fun space invaders themed multiplication and division maths game. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

Students in grades 3 - 5 apply area and perimeter skills to solve increasingly complex designs. The focus is rectangular spaces.

From the abstract: "We tested the hypothesis that certain aspects of nonperceptible Euclidian geometry map onto intuitions of space that are present in all humans, even in the absence of formal mathematical education. Our tests probed intuitions of points, lines, and surfaces in participants from an indigene group in the Amazon, the Mundurucu, as well as adults and age-matched children controls from the United States and France and younger US children without education in geometry. The responses of Mundurucu adults and children converged with that of mathematically educated adults and children and revealed an intuitive understanding of essential properties of Euclidean geometry." (Full text requires subscription.

A game where students can practise their coordinates by moving shapes to fit in the correct space and using rotation, translation and reflection. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

A fun space invaders maths game where players shoot the balloon with the answer to the multiplication or division question. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/maths

We need a simple way to communicate math on the Web. I'm often amazed that a really popular math forum like Ask Dr Math has these tedious math typing suggestions where you have to enter hundreds of spaces to get things to line up.

"Calls are frequently heard for improving schooling by closing the gap between children's life out-of-school and traditional learning styles, and by broadening the space and span for life-long learning opportunities. The Math4Mobile development endeavors to engage all students with mathematical ideas. It provides a collection of tools that could be included in a variety of activities to support students' mathematical skills, conceptual understanding, and creative mathematical thinking. "

"Making Every Maths Lesson Count is underpinned by six pedagogical principles - challenge, explanation, modelling, practice, feedback and questioning - and presents 52 high-impact strategies designed to streamline teacher workload and ramp up the level of challenge in the maths classroom. Throughout this book, Emma McCrea (through extensive research and practice) explores how to manage mathematical misconceptions with practical ideas on many areas of the required curriculum. The six pedagogical principles mentioned above form the heart of the book, with metacognitive questioning given space in developing cognitive strategies with pupils. "

"SpaceMath@NASA introduces students to the use of mathematics in todays scientific discoveries. Through press releases and other articles, we explore how many kinds of mathematics skills come together in exploring the universe."