In a post a few weeks ago, I told the story of Doctor Dimension, the two-dimensional scientist who spends his fictional life filling two-dimensional containers with two-dimensional liquids, and has been doing this since 1994. In the comments, two different Bay Area math teachers directed me to Water Line, a wonderful Dan Meyer / Desmos… Continue reading Doctor Dimension Returns!
Author: hpicciotto
World Cup Fever
The World Cup happens mostly during summer vacation, which is unfortunate, because it provides a great context for a geometry exploration.I start my book Geometry Labs with lessons about angles, starting from the very basics, and moving on to the inscribed angle theorem. (The book is available in its entirety as a free download here.… Continue reading World Cup Fever
Doctor Dimension
Twenty-some years ago, I started teaching an advanced high school geometry elective class called Space. I offered it every other year until I retired last year. Most of the course was about transformational geometry and symmetry. (That turned out to be excellent preparation for Common Core geometry. I will be presenting and co-presenting four workshops… Continue reading Doctor Dimension
New stuff on my Web site
I am busy preparing for my summer workshops, so I'm blogging less and adding more stuff to my Web site.Here's a list of recent additions:- A new Geometric Construction page, including a whole unit with a teachers' guide, plus a GeoGebra page with tools limited to straightedge and compass construction. Also an applet / file… Continue reading New stuff on my Web site
Big Fun!
In time for my summer workshops, I have a new page on complex numbers, featuring an explanation of the approach I recommend for teaching this topic, worksheets for Algebra 2 and beyond, and (big fun!) online games to introduce and practice complex number arithmetic.Over the decades, I created versions of these games in three education-oriented… Continue reading Big Fun!
Responses to my Common Core analysis
I have received excellent feedback about my analysis of the Common Core State Standards for high school math.E-mailed and spoken responses from my main hoped-for audience (high school math teachers) have almost without exception included a mention of having shared the paper with colleagues. For example:"I read your article about the Common Core on your… Continue reading Responses to my Common Core analysis
Astronomy and Geometric Construction
In the days preceding a recent lunar eclipse, my daughter saw an illustration that seemed to show that the Moon's diameter was just about equal to the width of the penumbra. She conjectured that if that were true, it may be because of the fact that the apparent diameter of the Moon (as seen from… Continue reading Astronomy and Geometric Construction
Completing the Square
New animation: a geometric representation of completing the square. In this post, I present one way to use it as part of an algebra curriculum.Many secondary school teachers figure that the derivation of the quadratic formula by completing the square can be shown to students, but have little hope of any understanding. They… Continue reading Completing the Square
Reasonable Acceleration
In previous posts, I expressed my concern about hyper-acceleration, the foisting of ever more advanced math topics on ever younger students. After illustrating some of the problems with that trend, I suggested a strategy for teachers to resist it. In this final post in the series, I will unpack one ingredient in that strategy: reasonable… Continue reading Reasonable Acceleration
Henri's Math Education Blog 