From Washington, DC, right after the NCTM national meeting.
By Saturday afternoon, the convention center was a ghost town. I gave my talk on Space to a room where fewer than five percent of the 400 chairs were occupied. I had succeeded in shortening the talk, and didn’t need to rush quite as much as I did. Still, it seems to have gone well. The final version of the talk and the accompanying Cabri demos are now on the Space page of the site.
Other meeting news:
– I saw some old friends, and I made some New York area contacts, which may turn out to be helpful during my year off from teaching.
– I joined NCSM, the National Council of Supervisors of Math. I had been meaning to do that for a long time. NCSM is an organization of people who deem themselves leaders in math education, whether in their own school, or in a broader arena. I had been thinking that there is no place to discuss math department chair issues. NCSM may be the place.
– I attended some interesting talks. In particular, I learned some features of Cabri 3D that I hadn’t been familiar with, and which I look forward to introducing to my colleagues. I also picked up assorted interesting pedagogical tidbits.
Still, I traveled a really long way for this. I think I’ll stick to meetings closer to home in the future. Next year, in San Diego, I hope to give a talk about conic sections. Hopefully it will be accepted, and scheduled better!
–Henri
Henri's Math Education Blog 