The California Association of Independent Schools will be holding its every-other-year Northern California Regional Meeting on March 11 in Oakland. If you work at a member school, I may see you there. Here is what I plan to do that day:Session 1: I will join Laura Hawkins, who succeeded me as math department chair at… Continue reading CAIS North
Author: hpicciotto
Mathematics Overview
I have written an outline of one possible version of the foundational topics of secondary school math, covering key concepts usually taught in grades 7 to 10. The idea was to write a one-year review course for seniors who have had trouble with math up to that point, but still intend to go to a… Continue reading Mathematics Overview
Summer Workshops for Math Teachers
I will offer four workshops for secondary school teachers this summer:San Francisco (at the Urban School's Center for Innovative Teaching)June 17-19: Visual AlgebraGreater access, greater challenge, and greater variety — by using blocks or tiles, geoboards, function diagrams, and technology.June 20-21: Re-imagining High School MathPedagogy, learning tools, curriculum, assessment, the long period, heterogeneous classes, deceleration,… Continue reading Summer Workshops for Math Teachers
Function Diagram Slides
I posted slides from last Saturday's talk about function diagrams on my Web site. I don't imagine they'll be that useful, unless you want to use them in one of your presentations, but on the same page you can read the article the presentation was largely based on, and find links to many PDFs, animations,… Continue reading Function Diagram Slides
Fraction Arithmetic
[I posted an edited version of this post, including an approach to the division of fractions, here.]If you are familiar with my Web site, you probably know my interest in visual representations of algebraic ideas. The seed for this was probably planted during my decade as an elementary school teacher, where I learned about visual… Continue reading Fraction Arithmetic
Polyomino Lessons
I just uploaded a book of Polyomino Lessons to my Web site. The book first came out in 1986, and has long been out of print. It includes a wide range of puzzles and activities for middle and high school, mostly carried out on grid paper.Here are some solutions to one of the puzzles: One… Continue reading Polyomino Lessons
Bay Area Circle for Teachers
I will present an overview of the mathematics and pedagogy of function diagrams at the Winter Workshop of the Bay Area Circle for Teachers, on Saturday, January 26, in Jack London Square in Oakland, CA. Function diagrams are also known as the parallel axes representation, and a computer version is sometimes called "dynagraph". There's a… Continue reading Bay Area Circle for Teachers
Manipulatives update
As larger publishers swallow smaller ones, educational materials with a smaller market tend to be removed from the market. As an author, I have been a victim of this economic reality for quite some time now. However today I have some good news on that front.My book Geometry Labs was originally published by Key Curriculum… Continue reading Manipulatives update
Integrating y=x^2
I added a new page to my Web site. It's a visual proof that the integral of y=x2 from 0 to b is indeed b3/3.Some interesting things about this proof:It was discovered by Jacob Regenstein, a high school student.It does not involve any algebraic manipulation.It shows a dramatic example of how integration increases the degree… Continue reading Integrating y=x^2
New Lesson
I posted a new lesson on my Web site: Comparing Cell Phone Plans. I wrote the lesson as part of a project I worked on with Amanda Cangelosi, an ex-colleague and currently a prof at the University of Utah. We were auditioning for a new online math lessons Web site. We did not make the… Continue reading New Lesson
Henri's Math Education Blog 