Middle and High School … from a Montessori Point of View
Jupiter and Venus have been sitting near the western horizon, shining so brightly that even I have noticed them. Phil Plait explains with some back-of-the-envelope math, why Venus is brighter even though it’s smaller than Jupiter. It’s a nice example of how a little math can do a great job explaining how the world (and … Continue reading “Jupiter and Venus in Conjuction”
The Missouri Council of Teachers of Mathematics (MoCTM) has a Math & Art Contest that focuses on Geometry. It has fairly simple expectations, and it’s aimed at Middle School students and lower. The tie between the math and the art does not require much depth, but that’s probably appropriate for students who are still developing … Continue reading “Math & Art Contest”
While it’s nice to have the math concepts arranged nicely based on their presentation in the textbook. Since my plan is to give just a few overview lessons and let students discover the details I’ll be presenting things a little differently based on my own conceptual organization. So I’ve created a second graphic map, which … Continue reading “Concept Maps of Math”
I was trying to figure out how I could create a graphic organizer/mindmap to outline my math class that my students could access online. Even better would be if they could also edit the map online. That way I could set up the outline of my lesson notes and they could fill in definitions for … Continue reading “Mindmapping Online with Mind42”
The epistemological approach to education suggests that the best way to learn a subject is to learn how to think like the experts in the field: how to think like a scientist; how to think like an historian; how to think like an engineer; etc. How to think like a mathematician is Kevin Houston‘s attempt … Continue reading “How to Think Like a Mathematician”
This one’s for the nerds. It’s hard to argue against the elegance of using tau instead of pi. Natalie Wolchover explains, while Kevin Houston makes the argument in video:
Cynical, but, if you consider the current “kinetic military action” in Libya, way to close to reality. Indeed, this highlights the question: When does it become too easy to go to war? Jonathan Schell sums it up in the Guardian: American planes are taking off, they are entering Libyan air space, they are locating targets, … Continue reading “A Nefarious Application of Math”
To help build up your logical/mathematical intelligence, here is the equation for the volume of a pizza.