Brian Conrad, the Stanford mathematician who has written extensively about the problems with the proposed California Mathematics Framework (CMF), is now the subject of a formal complaint filed with Stanford University by the President of the central section of the California Math Council accusing him of "reckless disregard for academic integrity".
Something I keep coming back to as a teacher and learner is Papert's concept of "Objects to Think With". In some ways, math for me is simply a collection of objects to think with. The guitar, too. Card games. The Rubik's cube. A basketball. And a simple way to be a lifelong learner is to continually seek out new objects to think with.
My research group has a maths education PhD position available. (Not maths, please note, but maths education). The position is within FERMAT, the mathematics education research group at the University of Twente.
Much of the Internet "debate" about algebra seems to stem from lack of awareness of what the subject is (versus the arithmetic method it was long ago) #algebra#mathedhttps://tinyurl.com/2p9myzt5
SMH. I know the MAGA Right have a fear of successful women, but the 11-member California State Board of Education voted UNANIMOUSLY for the new Math Framework (which is VERY similar to the OECD's new framework) so thinking one female #mathed professor called the shots is absurd
In response to repeated requests, #BrainQuake (which I co-founded) now provides schools with access to teacher-specified collections of our math-learning puzzles. The Web-version of the full, adaptive game is still available, as the "Family" option. #math#mathed#gblhttps://brainquake.com
My latest column for @QuantaMagazine is about the many ways recursion can be used across math classes, and starts with one of my all time favorite math problems!
@jeffmoore@edutooter@edutooter What this person claims is "inexplicable" is fairly well-explained in the UC BOARS report. The board examined several specific "data science" courses (from Youcubed and others) and determined, quite reasonably, that they do not constitute substantive math courses, and therefore should not count as substitutes. The report includes the outline of the review courses, so you can see for yourself.
I was excited to present a new workshop for teachers tonight titled "The Geometry of Statistics"! I love that I am continually learning as a teacher, and I'm fortunate to have opportunities to share what I learn with other teachers.
I once sat in a department meeting where a teacher loudly and seriously asserted that students learn better when chalk is used, and others nodded along in agreement.
I’m making some “fractions sensitivity training” warm up questions for grade five and six. Any particularly silly or subtle suggestions would be a big help. These are too boring.
A. How is 15min like $0.25?
B. How are three cat paws like 45min?
C. How is 12min like holding up one finger on one hand? .. or like $0.20?
D. How is one ant leg like 10 min?
F. How is holding up four fingers on one hand like 48min? … or like 8 dimes?
My latest column for @QuantaMagazine is about one of my favorite mathematical ideas: transitivity! Well, technically it's about intransitivity. Also, inspired by the football playoffs!
I want to riff a bit on computable numbers. I'll start with integers, fractions, mention Egyptians, and end up at H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos. (No, really.)
BTW, when thinking about fractions and decimal expansions, I always want to mention the Egyptian numeral system, and in particular the excellent book "Count Like An Egyptian":
The problem with our "p/q" notation for rationals is that it's hard to compare and approximate them. Say: which is bigger, 17/43 or 11/29? Hard to see, right?
But if I ask the same question for 0.3953488 and 0.3793103, it's easy.
Now think of approximation. Think of 17/43 in your typical quotitive (I think) model: you divide a circle into 43 equal sectors and you have 17 of them. But who can divide a pizza into 43 slices?? I want a smaller denominator that gets me close to 17/43.
Egyptian fractions make both tasks easy. I forget the details of how 17/43 would be done, but it turns out 17/43 is very close to 3/8 + 1/50. And 11/29 is very close to 3/8 + 1/250. So you can:
see which is bigger;
look at the denominators of the second-order terms and see how good your approximation is
Nice! But let's talk about infinity and Lovecraft.