I am going to be leading a workshop at The Lovett School in a few weeks, and the topic of the two-day intensive with middle school math teachers is digital fabrication. For readers unfamiliar with the topic du jour, digital fabrication is the process of creating a digital design that is then produced or …
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for: ‘Math’
Dan on Dan: Storytelling
Dan Willingham resonates with me and my line of thinking. It has something to do with the way that he can frame cognitive psychobabble in layperson speak that clearly explains teaching, learning, memory, and the human mind. Plus, Willingham is a cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia, and his Wahoo-roots make him alright in …
The Khan Academy
Dean Shareski wrote what I consider a thought provoking post on The Khan Academy, a website that provides instructional YouTube videos in domains that range from math to science for students who are young and old. The Khan Academy is the brain child of Sal Khan, an MIT and Harvard-trained engineer/business man, who originally …
Those Pesky Algorithms
Algorithms simplify and expedite operational computations. Yet, the way in which teachers instruct and students learn these processes make it more like a guessing game of steps that lack meaning and conceptual understanding. Especially for elementary students learning how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide (and I guess vacuum salesmen from the 1950s).
NCTM vs State Standards: Neither shall win.
I am sitting out on my mother’s deck in beautiful North Carolina, enjoying the sunny weather, 70 degree temperature, and dive-bombing humming birds. Yes, I am being attached by humming birds! One just flew to within three feet of my head, stopped, buzzed for about five seconds and then quickly departed. The assault …
General Mills and Post: Poor Mathematicians?
This post is a redesign of Kris’s Cereal Box digital fabrication project. Although the tweaks that I describe move Kris’s elementary lesson into the middle school and high school realm, it could be altered to be more of a discovery-type experience for elementary students familiar with digital fabrication and ModelMaker.
I came across a lesson …
The Problem with Polygons
This short video is ripe for exploration in all geometry classrooms. Plus, I would love to see Unlimited Detail Technology powering a game on my XBox.
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