This Week in Math Ed: April 15, 2016

I know, I know — I'm late with this post. Last week was very difficult to summarize, both because so much was happening around the NCTM conference and because I was traveling. I wrote some of this from San Francisco and some from Colorado, and I'm afraid I still can't quite see the forest for the trees. (I saw a lot of trees, er, sessions at the conference!) This TWiME will be put together in my usual way, and I'll save more of my conference-going thoughts for other posts.

Math Ed Said

April 8: A week before the event, Math Twitter was abuzz about ShadowCon 2016.

Shared by: NCTM, Eric Fleming, Andrew Gael, Fawn Nguyen, Jedidiah Butler, Kathy H, Marc Garneau, Cathy Yenca, Christina Sherman

April 9: 4/9/16 was a Happy Square Day. Patrick Honner wrote to let us know about this special day, but if there was a particular dessert we should have all been eating, he wasn't saying.

Shared by: Patrick Honner, David Coffey, Chris Robinson, Jim Wilder, Dave Richeson, Barbie Hoag, Keith Devlin, Pam Wilson, Sadie Estrella, Scott Leverentz, Amy Hogan, Damion Beth, Amy Hogan, Joshua Bowman, Gregory Taylor, Carrie Muir, WMC - WI MathCouncil, Greg George, Jim Wysocki

April 10: Will Richardson writes about "9 Elephants in the (Class)Room That Should 'Unsettle' Us."

Shared by: Jessica Faurote, Susan Russo, Genni Steele, Suzanne Kaplan, Maria Andersen, Mister Suever, Richelle Marynowski, Terry Kaminski

April 11: Jo Boaler announced the Visual Math Network, which combined a new self-published paper from Boaler and others, a companion web forum to discuss the paper, and a teacher's guide. For me, it's exciting to see a prominent scholar in mathematics education explore new forms of publishing and reader support.

Shared by: Susan Davidson, John Golden, Bryan Anderson, Jo Boaler, Sadie Estrella, Julia Neufer, Larry Sizemore, Christina Moore, Dan Meyer, Jennifer Blinzler, Amy Spies

April 12: Many people were impressed by David Butler's "Quarter the Cross," his painstaking and persistent effort to answer a simple but very open-ended problem posed by Truus Drekker and others in a Freudenthal Institute project.

Shared by: David Butler, Cal Armstrong, Fawn Nguyen, Tracy Johnston Zager, Bridget Dunbar, Simon Gregg, Heather Kohn, Rebecca Price

Eli Luberoff, CEO of Desmos
April 13: You can now enter integrals in Desmos.

Shared by: Christopher, Dan Anderson, Desmos.com, Tim Robaczewski, Patty Stephens, Mrs. Ritzi, Taylor Belcher, Eli Luberoff, Chris Lusto, Eddi Vulić, George Woodbury, Joshua Bowman, Audrey McLaren, Bryn Humberstone, Matt Lane

April 14: Carl Weiman used some of his Nobel Prize money to spur changes to teaching at CU-Boulder, and as he's moved to other schools he's spread these ideas and efforts.

Shared by: Shannon Houghton, Denis Sheeran, Terry Jones, Tyler Anderson, Terry Jones, John A. Pelesko, Warren J. Code, Keith Devlin, Simon Gregg

Around the Math Ed Web

Now that NCTM is over, everyone can join the rush to submit proposals for next year. Here are the deadlines:
On Tuesday the 19th, people discussed their NCTM conference favorites at the Global Math Department.

Research Notes

The May 2016 issue of Educational Studies in Mathematics is out:
Added to the June 2016 issue of The Journal of Mathematical Behavior:
There are three good-looking new articles in Mathematical Thinking and Learning:
There is more new research to check out, but I'll save the rest for the next TWiME.

Math Ed in the News


Math Ed in Colorado

There are some CCTM deadlines coming up very soon:
  • CCTM members have until TODAY, April 20, to vote for board members. You can learn more about the candidates here.
  • The deadline for submitting CCTM conference proposals is May 1.
  • CCTM's Spring 2016 issue of the Colorado Mathematics Teacher is out, featuring articles about mathematical mindsets, the PSAT and SAT, and professional development. While CCTM is now making the CMT journal free to all, it's the membership dues from over 600 Colorado math educators that supports this and the other work of CCTM.
CoMMIT (the Colorado Metropolitan Math Intervention Team) is having their spring meeting on April 21 from 9-noon at the Boulder Valley SD Education Center (6500 E. Arapahoe Rd) in Boulder. Kim Bunning, CU Teach Master Teacher at CU-Boulder, will be the presenter.

The next FRaMES (Front Range Mathematics Education Seminar) meeting will be held Friday, April 22 at 4pm Ross Hall 1090 on the main campus of UNC. (Note the change in location.) Sandra Laursen, Chuck Hayward, and Zachary Haberler, from the Ethnography & Evaluation Research (E&ER) team from CU-Boulder will be presenting about inquiry-based learning. If you're interested in attending, please register here.

The University of Northern Colorado is offering three graduate level math courses this summer as part of their Masters in Mathematics: Teaching Emphasis program. You don't have to be in the program to take the courses. A tentative schedule of courses through Spring 2018 and contact information is here.

Rebekah Ottenbreit from CDE's Office of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education is offering two more sessions focused on helping math teachers and ESL/bilingual educators use tools and strategies to make mathematics content more accessible to English learners. You can grab a flyer here.
  • May 10, 2016, from 8:30-noon at the Pueblo City Schools Administration Building, Pueblo, CO (register by 5/5/16)
  • May 13, 2016, from 8:30-noon at the NW CO BOCES downstairs conference room in Steamboat Springs (register by 5/8/16)
NEW: The grand opening of the Geometry Park exhibit in Lafayette (201 S Bermot St) will be Wednesday, May 25th, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm. The park is supported by the Center for STEM Learning at CU-Boulder and you can read more about the park here.

See the Rocky Mountain Math Teachers' Circle website and the Northern Colorado Math Circles for information about upcoming events, including a joint workshop in Durango from August 8-11. You have until June 15 to apply for that one!

The "Expanding Your Horizons" symposium for middle school girls interested in STEM registration begins March 1.

NCTM is offering two summer institutes this summer in Denver:
If I missed anything, let me know and I'll post it this Friday!
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Location: Boulder, CO, USA