As I announced in the November issue of my newsletter, the new Lab Gear books are out, and can be ordered from Didax: Algebra Lab Gear: Basic Algebra, and Algebra Lab Gear: Algebra 1.The Lab Gear is a comprehensive manipulative environment I created for the teaching and learning of algebra. I devote a fair amount… Continue reading New Lab Gear Books
Tag: Algebra
Northern California December Events
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
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
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
Integer Sequences
Last winter, I attended an interesting meeting of mathematicians and math educators in Banff, Canada. Our charge was to compile a list of integer sequences that would offer suitable problems for students (and teachers) at each level from Kindergarten to 12th grade. It was a sequel to 2014's Unsolved K-12 meeting, and once again was… Continue reading Integer Sequences
Constant Sums, Constant Products
I just cleaned up an existing page on my Web site: Constant Sums, Constant Products, "an untraditional approach to traditional topics". This is a mega-unit, spanning content from middle school, all the way to what one might call "teachers' mathematics." Take a look at it on a summer day when you have a little time… Continue reading Constant Sums, Constant Products
New on my Web site
I usually mention any new material on my Math Education Page on this blog. Today's installment: three new pages, each of which links to several others.1. A new issue of my Math Education Newsletter, featuring links to recent blog posts, info on my summer workshops, and an update on what's new on my Web site.… Continue reading New on my Web site
NCTM wrap-up
I only attended a few sessions at NCTM-Boston, because I spent a fair amount of time promoting the Lab Gear. I already posted my report on Geoff Krall's strategies to improve the problems we find in standard textbooks. In this post, I'll go over some of the other worthwhile ideas I came across.- Scott Steketee… Continue reading NCTM wrap-up
Logarithms
A young teacher writes:I'm teaching exponential functions and just getting into logs. Everyone tells me that kids tend to struggle with this chapter, so I'd like to try something different than what my school has been doing (just teaching the rules, then practicing over and over again.) Is there a way to introduce logs that… Continue reading Logarithms
Getting Help
In my last post, I described a problem I encountered more than twenty years ago, and my recent attempt at solving it. The problem: Partition the numbers from 1 to 2n into pairs, so that the sum of the numbers in each pair is a perfect square. For what numbers is this possible? I decided… Continue reading Getting Help
