This Week in Math Ed: August 5, 2016

Math Ed Said

July 29: Sam Shah blogged, "My Takeaways from #TMC16." It's a detailed, session-by-session post with a lot of ideas for coordinating class discussion and activity.

Shared by: Dan Meyer, Megan W. Taylor, Julie Reulbach, John Golden, Chris Shore, Taylor Belcher, Karyn Vogel, Life LeGeros, Ron King, David Costello, Alex Jaffurs

July 30: Christopher Danielson announced preorders for his book, Which One Doesn't Belong? A Better Shapes Book.

Shared by: Christopher Danielson, Jose Vilson, Tracy Johnston Zager, Laura Wagenman, Malke Rosenfeld, Matthew Oldridge, DeAnn Huinker, Kristin Gray, Andrew Gael, Michael Fenton, WODB? Math, Mary Bourassa, Mark Chubb, Kyle Pearce, Andy Martinson, Glenn Waddell, Jr., David Sabol, Geoff Krall, mathzone, Judy Larsen

July 31: Jeremy Kun wrote an essay called, "Habits of highly mathematical people." It's all good stuff about attending to definitions, counterexamples, defending claims, etc., but I particularly liked this part, because I'm sure I've been guilty of it:
"Anyone who has gone through an undergraduate math education has known a person (or been that person) to regularly point out that X statement is not precisely true in the very special case of Y that nobody intended to include as part of the discussion in the first place. It takes a lot of social maturity beyond the bare mathematical discourse to understand when this is appropriate and when it’s just annoying."
Shared by: Patrick Honner, Shauna Hedgepeth, Keith Devlin, Dana C. Ernst, Amy Hogan, Matthew Oldridge

Papert's Mindstorms
August 1: We were saddened by the passing of Seymour Papert, who died at the age of 88. Here's the statement released by the MIT Media Lab.

Shared by: Ryan R Ruff, Robin Hosemann, Josh Giesbrecht, Patrick Honner, Henri Picciotto, Matthew Oldridge, Keith Devlin, Mike Thayer, Jocelyn Dagenais, Dr. Natthapoj Trakulphadetkrai, Penny Bentley, Cathy Campbell, Denise Gaskins

August 2: I have an old "explaining invert and multiply" post on this blog and, frankly, I'm embarrassed by it. I did some short algebraic justification and I know I have better explanations. Thanks to Graham Fletcher, he's picked up the torch with a new post, "Making Sense of Invert and Multiply." Graham's explanation is way better than mine, but mine would still look and sound different. Maybe I should still plan on updating that old post after all.

Shared by: Graham Fletcher, Rusty Anderson, Josh Fisher, Jennifer Bell, Greg George, Laura Wagenman, Bryan Anderson, Andrew Gael, Julie Kubiak

August 3: There's a tie and I can't just pick one, so here's a three-fer:
  1. "How to Make Math More Emotionally Engaging For Students" from KQED News's "MindShift" blog
  2. "Math Teaching: What We've Learned From Research Over a Decade" on Education Week's "Curriculum Matters" blog
  3. "A Very Valuable Conjecture" by Dan Meyer
Shared by: (1) Jessica Faurote, Melinda Lula, Christina Moore, Alayne Armstrong, Sarah Powell, Dan McQuillan, Donna Boucher, Jennifer Lawler, Michelle Russell; (2) Math Coach Rivera, Robert Cop, NCTM, David Keller, Greg George, Andrew Gael, Matthew Oldridge, David Costello, Sendhil Revuluri; (3) Dan Meyer, Nancy Terry, David Butler, Sherri Burroughs, Mark Chubb, Alex Jaffurs, Bridget Soumeillan, Imtiaz Damji, Cynthia Crenshaw

August 4: People were sharing a new resource site, "Math and Social Justice: A Collaborative MTBoS Site." At first I was confused by this site, since I think of Radical Math when it comes to these issues. However, I see that much of what's on Radical Math is now getting quite dated and almost everything is explicitly copyrighted. Maybe in the future these two efforts will become more clearly complimentary, using the strong foundation of Radical Math with the fresh efforts behind the new site.

Shared by: John Golden, Gregory Taylor, Wendy Menard, Annie Perkins, Megan Schmidt, Norma Gordon

Around the Math Ed Web

The Global Math Department is back to having weekly talks, and this Tuesday the topic will be "Back to School Night Ignites."

The 13th International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME-13) was held July 24-31 in Hamburg, Germany. I wasn't watching Twitter much that week, so I don't know if there was much to follow along with live. However, they have been posting some videos on the ICME website.

The August 19 deadline for RUME proposals is creeping closer.

NCTM Research Conference proposals are now being accepted and the deadline to submit is September 4.

Research Notes

Yet another article has been added to the September 2016 issue of The Journal of Mathematical Behavior:
Here are the math-related articles in the August 2016 issue of the International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education:
Michal Ayalon at the 2015 ISDDE Conference

Math Ed in the News


Math Ed in Colorado

Events!

August 7th: This weekend is the last weekend to see the "Robot Revolution" exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

August 10th: There is a special screening of the film "Navajo Math Circles" from 6:30 to 8:30 pm at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Admission is free and representatives from local math circles will be on hand to answer questions about activities you can participate in around Colorado. Use the will call entrance on the north side of the museum to attend the screening.

August 17th: The Colorado Education Initiative is presenting a private screening of the 90-minute documentary Most Likely to Succeed on August 17th from 8:30 to 10:30 am. (Yes, in the morning!) The documentary highlights the approach to education used at High Tech High, where learning is very student-centered and project-based. I saw this film earlier this summer at a workshop we put on for Colorado teachers and it spurred some good discussions, some optimism, and some skepticism. If you can make it to Denver to see the film, I recommend it, but you'll need to RSVP as seating is limited.
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Location: Boulder, CO, USA