I suspect that some readers of this blog do not subscribe to my newsletter, so I will use this post and the next to let you know about some news in my math education life. If you did get the November issue of the newsletter, you might read on anyway, as I will be going… Continue reading Northern California December Events
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Programming and Math Education
Some responses on Twitter made me realize I was probably not clear in yesterday's post where I argued that computer programming is a kind of literacy. Some people say that students should be exposed to computer science because that's where the jobs will be in the future. There may be some validity to that, but… Continue reading Programming and Math Education
Literacies
I've been known to argue that computer programming (a.k.a. "coding") is a new literacy. In this post, I'll try to clarify why, and discuss some implications. First, let's define our terms. On what grounds can school subjects be classified as a kind of literacy? I can think of two criteria. * The first criterion is… Continue reading Literacies
How To
I am often asked "what is the best way to teach equation solving?" (or graphing, or factoring, etc.) Conversely, teachers often want to share with me what they deem the best way to teach students how to do certain things. These conversations are based on a widely-held belief that our job as math teachers is… Continue reading How To
Embracing Opposites
A couple of years ago on this blog, I summarized "Embracing Contraries in the Teaching Process", an important article by English professor Peter Elbow. His key point was that there is a tension between our obligation to our students, on the one hand, and our obligation to our discipline, on the other. In many ways,… Continue reading Embracing Opposites
The Dark Side of Learning Styles
In my previous post, I stated that my teaching would not be affected by the discovery that the learning styles theory is not supported by the evidence. In a comment, I added: "The most toxic impact of [learning styles] is that some students are convinced they can only learn visually, or kinesthetically, or whatever. This… Continue reading The Dark Side of Learning Styles
Learning Styles, Teaching Styles
Over the years, many students, and a few teachers, have told me about what they consider their learning style, or in some cases, their learning differences. Meanwhile, over the years, I have been promoting what I call a tool-rich pedagogy, arguing that it helps reach students who have various learning styles.And now I'm told that… Continue reading Learning Styles, Teaching Styles
First Day of School
For most of you, school started recently, or will start soon. For me, this is the beginning of the third year of my retirement, and I'm starting to get used to the weirdness of my new life.It turns out that August is by far the most intense work month for me, because that's when I… Continue reading First Day of School
Triangle Congruence and Similarity tweaks
I just tweaked my documents on a transformational approach to triangle congruence and similarity, thanks to feedback from Bill McCallum.- Version 1 (more opinionated and footnoted)- Version 2 (co-authored with Lew Douglas, better section on similarity)The main change is to the SAS proof, which did not correspond to its illustration. If you downloaded earlier versions,… Continue reading Triangle Congruence and Similarity tweaks
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