I am teaching a Visual Algebra workshop in San Francisco, June 17-19.Support materials are on the workshop participants' Web site.Over the past couple of decades, there has been a trend to teach algebra to younger and younger students. That could actually be a good thing. But unfortunately, that has been interpreted as teaching the traditional… Continue reading Visual Algebra: Sharing
Tag: ProfessionalDevelopment
Transformational Geometry, cont’d.
As I mentioned in a recent post, I will be one of the presenters at the Bay Area Math Project's summer workshop on Transformational Geometry. As part of preparing for this, I went through my notes, and compiled a sort of syllabus of the relevant lessons from my Space course. Symmetry and transformations are the… Continue reading Transformational Geometry, cont’d.
Transformational Geometry
One of the features of the Common Core content standards in secondary school is a change in the foundations of geometry. Instead of basing everything on congruence and similarity postulates, as is traditional, the idea is to build on a basis of geometric transformations: translation, rotation, reflection, and dilation. This is an interesting change, but… Continue reading Transformational Geometry
Common Core and "Assessment"
I attended a the Critical Issues in Math Education (CIME) meeting in Berkeley (my home town) a few weeks ago. It was a decent mix of math ed researchers, mathematicians, teachers, and people who work for various nonprofits connected to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). I was pleased to see they did involve some… Continue reading Common Core and "Assessment"
e-mail list
You can now get on my e-mail list by going to a new page on my Web site. If you're not yet on my list, get on now!I intend to send out a mailing every six weeks or so, to notify subscribers of my workshops and presentations, and of any new posts here and new… Continue reading e-mail list
CAIS North
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
Using interactive geometry
This is the final post of my report on the Asilomar conference. (To read the whole set, start here.)I made a cameo appearance in my colleague Scott Nelson's presentation on how using computer software intelligently has made his Analytic Geometry course vastly more accessible. I loved his presentation. (If you teach in a member school… Continue reading Using interactive geometry
About Student-Created Problems
In my last post, I reported on Avery Pickford's exciting presentation at the Asilomar conference. The idea of student-created problems was thought-provoking — here are some thoughts it provoked.I have no doubt that pursuing student-created problems is worthwhile, but a skeptic may not be convinced by the argument that we should do this because it… Continue reading About Student-Created Problems
Student-Created Problems
This is the continuation of my report on last weekend's Asilomar conference. (Previous installment.)Avery Pickford's session was about student-created problems. You can read a summary on this blog (Without Geometry, Life is Pointless). Creating problems is, after all, what mathematicians do. Yes, they sometimes explore questions that have been posed by others, but even then,… Continue reading Student-Created Problems
Standards
Just back from the California Math Council Northern California conference. It takes place in Asilomar, a state beach and convention facility in Pacific Grove, near Monterey, CA. I've been taking this trip every year with the Urban School Math Department for who knows how long. We all ride down together in one van, and hang… Continue reading Standards
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