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Opinions expressed on these pages were the views of the writers and did not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the American Mathematical Society.
Category Archives: K-12 Mathematics
Which One Doesn’t Belong?
1, 2, 4,…. What’s the next number in the sequence? I was a rule-follower as a kid, so I always got the “right” answer on questions like that, but they still bugged me. Sure, 8 would be predictable, but why … Continue reading
Algebra: It’s More Than Just Parabolas
Our old pal Andrew Hacker is back at it again. With the publication of his new book and a spate of recent media appearances, he is a man on a mission. A professor emeritus in the Department of Political Science … Continue reading
Posted in K-12 Mathematics, Math Education
Tagged algebra, Andrew Hacker, Ben Orlin, Keith Devlin, Simon Jenkins
2 Comments
Getting Warmer…
I’m currently teaching a summer school for high school students. Our main focus is number theory and its applications to cryptology, but I like to start each morning with some kind of warm-up math puzzle or game. I know plenty … Continue reading
Prepare to Be Nerdsniped
You have a lot of bags, and you want to store them by stuffing all of them into one of the bags. For n bags, how many ways are there to do this? I’ve spent a good amount of time … Continue reading
Posted in K-12 Mathematics, Math Education
Tagged combinatorics, education, fun problems, nerdsniping, thinking in math class
2 Comments
Alias, Schmalias
While the great line from Romeo and Juliet: “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” rings true, would a digital rose smell as sweet? We often think of the digital world as a mere “renaming” of the … Continue reading
Awesome K-12 Math Teachers Exist! And they have blogs.
I sometimes get tired of hearing about how “teachers (meaning K-12 teachers) just don’t understand this or that, or won’t try doing something new,” or are deficient in some way or another. We often advise teachers to let go of … Continue reading
My Top Ten Issues in Mathematics Education
What are your “top ten”? Sue VanHattum, a full time faculty member at Contra Costa College inspired me with her wonderful top ten list . Below are my top ten Issues in Mathematics Education. While this is my opinion, I do … Continue reading
Mistakes Are Interesting
I just finished grading my first midterms of the semester, and I’m learning a lot about how my students think through the mistakes they made. (With apologies to Tolstoy, I’m definitely experiencing a bit of “correct solutions are all alike; … Continue reading
Rankings, Standards, and Inquiry, Oh my!
Ranking As concern for K-12 standards in public education has come to a head, the quality of teaching and learning in our public universities has also come under public scrutiny. Recently, President Obama announced that he wanted to rework the … Continue reading
Posted in Issues in Higher Education, K-12 Mathematics, Math Education
Comments Off on Rankings, Standards, and Inquiry, Oh my!
The Pseudocontext 2016 Deserves
2016 has been the year of the lolsob. I have my reasons for feeling that way, and I’m guessing you might too. In that light, I’ve especially started looking forward to Dan Meyer’s “pseudocontext Saturday” posts. In each one, he finds a picture … Continue reading →