Math Links for Week Ending Nov. 8th, 2019

Featured Links
I think that sometimes we think that students shouldn't have too much trouble with dilations since it's just increasing or decreasing in size but I have found that students, in general, have difficulty with proportional reasoning and so dilations can pose a particular problem. In this new @Desmos activity, students get a chance to sink golf balls in holes using the principles of dilations and then end up with some similar triangles
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://twitter.com/Desmos/status/1192859285962645504

✨💚 DILATION MINI GOLF 💚✨

In our new activity students will experience dilations in their natural habitat: the mini golf course! https://t.co/LrS225tDV0 pic.twitter.com/g4Z177F8o6

— Desmos.com (@Desmos) November 8, 2019

Resource Links
Looking for something to do next weekend. How about a free virtual summit from @makemathmoments with over 2 dozen great speakers. It's Saturday & Sunday of next week and you can check out my session on maximizing your online PLN at noon on Saturday.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://makemathmoments.com/summit/

When I first saw this Tweet, I dismissed it as not interesting but I'm not sure why but I was drawn back to it and I was hooked. My strategy was to start with a single fold and see what happens. Definitely great for helping kids with spatial reasoning.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/jamestanton/status/1190626271610339330

Fold a piece of paper in any way you like into layers of congruent rectangles. If you could somehow paint all the upward facing surfaces black, and then unfold the paper, what pattern of black and white rectangles would you see on the full unfolded sheet? pic.twitter.com/GkWY5KysEo

— James Tanton (@jamestanton) November 2, 2019

I have been doing this blog for over 6 years now (and sharing resources in other forms for many years before that). So I am always happy when I find other people that share resources that they have found. So here, @mathsjem occasionally does posts of math related things that she has found. Take a look.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.resourceaholic.com/2019/11/gems117.html

New! My 117th gems post. Ideas, updates and resources for maths teachers. Includes my slides from #marvellousmaths.💎

Hat tips to follow. https://t.co/BtyR9ZalvR#mathschat #mathsgems #teammaths pic.twitter.com/Go6ylqqPyz

— Jo Morgan (@mathsjem) November 2, 2019

Although in this activity by @TheErikLee he has focused on the idea of translating to and from scale diagrams or blueprints, I think it could be used for any context involving scale diagrams or ratio and rate.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MAP4C
https://pbbmath.weebly.com/blog/scale-otters



Video Links
Here is a new one of those dynamic bar graphs, this time showing the best selling music artists over time in the last 50 years.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3w8I8boc_I

Here's a neat combinatorics/probability puzzle that @standupmaths demonstrates with @alexbellos. And one of the things I just found out is that for many of @standupmaths videos, there are teacher resources that can be found here.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1DUUnhk3uE

Image Links
There is definitely a math problem in this image. What do you see? Thanks to @Stoodle for pointing this one out.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://twitter.com/AMillionScreens/status/1192489050248056832

There are an awful lot of streaming options forthcoming: Given a budget of $40, what are you choosing? https://t.co/or2n0d1tLK pic.twitter.com/SpA6OrcJaL

— MillionsOfScreens (@AMillionScreens) November 7, 2019

Another one of these algebra questions that is made easier for struggling students by making it friendlier for students.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://twitter.com/solvemymaths/status/1190916747790102529

So true 😂🤣https://t.co/kCvlEkmxZm pic.twitter.com/OB5do0pZ5P

— Ed Southall (@solvemymaths) November 3, 2019

Math Links for Week Ending Nov. 1st, 2019

Featured Links
The OAME Leadership conference was today and there was a pile of great speakers. Check out some of the Tweets on the back channel using #OAMELead. Thanks to @Paul_Math for putting on a great show. Click on the link to see the whole back channel and see below for a few of my Tweets from @Marian_Small's presentation
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23oameLead&src=typed_query&f=live

“The showing is little and the doing is big” - @marian_small at #OAMELead 2019

#mathchat #MTBoS #iTeachMath pic.twitter.com/dP2kbOqRho

— David Petro (@davidpetro314) November 1, 2019

“I’m not convinced that if you can’t multiply a 4 digit number by a 2 digit number, that something bad happens” - @marian_small at #OAMELead 2019 #mathchat #MTBoS #iTeachMath pic.twitter.com/qNe7i1cdAO

— David Petro (@davidpetro314) November 1, 2019

“The mission of math is to take ugly stuff and make it pretty” - @marian_small at #OAMELead 2019 #mathchat #MTBoS #iTeachMath pic.twitter.com/0SKtdFXrmk

— David Petro (@davidpetro314) November 1, 2019

“What is our role when supporting teachers ...” -@marian_small at #OAMELead 2019 #mathchat #MTBoS #iTeachMath pic.twitter.com/j6oLPpJ09W

— David Petro (@davidpetro314) November 1, 2019

Resource Links
Thanks to @MathyCathy for reminding me of these cool @desmos "breakout rooms" made by @MrChowMath. He's created several escape room style Desmos activities for different topics and @MathyCathy has a great blog post on how she uses them in her class.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.mathycathy.com/blog/2018/04/desmos-breakout-escape-room-activities-amazing-review/

Article Links
Want to know who wrote the bulk of The Beatles' "In My Life"? Data analysis to the rescue. Thanks to @StevenStrogatz for pointing this one out. Note Steven's correction that the probability was 0.18 not 0.018.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://mentalfloss.com/article/554392/who-wrote-beatles-my-life-according-math-it-was-john-lennon

Press summary of an earlier version of the analysis: https://t.co/0BDxE45BGY. But note that the actual paper says probability = 0.18 (not .018) that Paul wrote the melody. In other words, about 80% likely to have been John. Very likely, but not nearly certain.

— Steven Strogatz (@stevenstrogatz) October 26, 2019

Video/Audio Links
This is a pretty cool physical manipulative for connecting nets to polyhedra. Download the template here.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://www.facebook.com/jaibanaeducativa/posts/10221885111537157



The second episode of Season 2 of the @OAMEtalks podcast is out. This time featuring @stoodle talking about "Joining the Global Math Teacher's Lounge".
Curriculum Tags: All
https://talks.oame.on.ca/season-2







Image Links
Such a simple idea but great for kids to get a sense of scale and size of the earth using Pythagorean Theorem.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://twitter.com/jamestanton/status/1189184324928598022

From a conversation with @Mathgarden: Have you an intuitive sense of the curvature of the Earth? Draw a 1-mile segment tangent to surface. What's your guess as to the distance back to surface at endpoint? What is the actual value? (Assume perfect sphere, R=3963 miles.) pic.twitter.com/Jy7lKWOgXD

— James Tanton (@jamestanton) October 29, 2019

Math Links for Week Ending Oct. 25th, 2019

Featured Links
There are some cool features in this new @Desmos activity. First of all it's a great activity for connecting rates and linear relations as well as introduction to systems of equations. The context of racing turtles is fairly benign but I love the feature on slide 7 where students can draw the distance time graph (either with straight segments or by hand and then race them to see the results. Definitely great to bring discussion into your classes.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P, MFM2P
https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/5da9e2174769ea65a6413c93

Resource Links
Last week I posted about how the Autograph graphing software is now free. And got this neat activity Tweeted back to me on the value of e.
Curriculum Tags: MHF4U, MCR3U
https://twitter.com/douglasbutler1/status/1186621842062299136

David Petro, Toronto
Good to hear that you have discovered Autograph.
Here is a classic Autograph lesson exploring 'e',. and
please note this link to loads of videos and other resources:https://t.co/GAuXlHjCzt pic.twitter.com/V5HqfjYR3e

— Douglas Butler (@douglasbutler1) October 22, 2019

Here is a glimpse of the formation of a Desmos activity from @JennSWhite with some nice interactive features to help teach the concept of angle relationships with a transversal through parallel lines.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/5db0822dbab1750b32779f08




Article Links
Some inspiration for your female students. Gladys helped develop GPS
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.upworthy.com/you-may-not-know-gladys-west-but-her-calculations-revolutionized-navigation



Video/Audio Links
I love this video from @3Blue1Brown. Even if you are not interested in polar coordinates, I think it's still interesting because of how he shows the mathematics of why a pattern exists for prime numbers (spoiler alert, it's just a subset of all numbers). And the visual effects are pretty awesome too.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK32jo7i5LQ

I think this is easier to make than hexaflexagons. So take a shot at creating a tetraflexagon.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H4lDi79YY8

I recorded an episode on the @MakeMathMoments podcast in the summer and it went live this week. It's about the benefits of sharing on the Internet. Have a listen
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/MakeMathMoments/status/1186352273418571783

[NEW EPISODE 47] In this episode we chat with @davidpetro314 about resource sharing, online learning, what his favorite activities are, and how you can get started!

Dive in: https://t.co/9tc3JRdX5r#mathchat #mathschat #MTBoS #edchat #iteachmath pic.twitter.com/qbQMQjQFDf

— Make Math Moments That Matter (@MakeMathMoments) October 21, 2019

Here's a possible way to help students distinguish between perimeter and area
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MFM1P
https://twitter.com/PaulaKrieg/status/1186730489748623361

Ss learn perimeter & area at around the same time, then sometimes get them mixed up. I just finished a perimeter-pocket that holds a string and even has a ruler printed on it, designed to help Ss remember what is perimeter. Part of my workshop at @center4bookarts this Saturday. pic.twitter.com/jKVULp2G8Q

— Paula Beardell Krieg (@PaulaKrieg) October 22, 2019

Image Links
I added to my collection of pictures of tessellations
Curriculum Tags: Gr7
https://www.instagram.com/p/B33C_79nay4

View this post on Instagram

Tonight’s #tessellation

A post shared by David Petro (@lookimyourfather) on Oct 20, 2019 at 5:27pm PDT

Math Links for Week Ending Oct. 18th, 2019

Featured Links
Sometimes when things are free, you get what you pay for. But other times, like this one, a super powerful software package that had a price tag, has become free. In this case that is the Autograph dynamic math package. I have always liked this but because there was a cost, I never bothered with it since we already had things like Desmos and Geogebra (and here in Ontario, Geometer's Sketchpad) available for free to teachers and students. So now everyone can try Autograph out.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://completemaths.com/autograph

You can download Autograph for free from the Complete Maths websitehttps://t.co/ADXgnh2V2S

This initial launch brings PC and Mac (depends on OS) desktop versions.

Soon, we will add a new Mac version and a web application version for mobile devices.

— Autograph Maths (@autographmaths) October 12, 2019

Resource Links
A new @Desmos activity to investigate angle relationships
Curriculum Tags: Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://teacher.desmos.com/activitybuilder/custom/5d896650e796e00c23556d76

💥💥💥Brand new activity from the @Desmos Team: Puzzling it out ! Students solve angle puzzles to apply what they’ve learned about angle relationships and to informally learn the Triangle Sum theorem #desmos #MTBoS #iteachmath https://t.co/L2XiAPCI0S pic.twitter.com/VW5DLErOYd

— Jocelyn (Joce) Dagenais (@jocedage) October 11, 2019

Make sure you read through the comments to see all the ways mathematical vocabulary can hang up students.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/bstockus/status/1183773482460553217

Vocabulary is a roadblock for students who struggle with mathematics, and for many reasons:

— Brian Bushart (@bstockus) October 14, 2019

I always like to promote new books coming out by the math teachers in the Twitter world and this time it's @robertkaplinsky who has an @OpenMiddle book coming out at the end of the month. And right now, if you preorder, there is a discount.
Curriculum Tags:All
https://twitter.com/robertkaplinsky/status/1184955244175749121

Hey @openmiddle fans. My book comes out in 11 days and the 10% off coupon (OPEN10) expires on 10/28. So if you were considering checking it out, head over to https://t.co/7tvRm4TVIa. If you want to learn more about it, read this blog post: https://t.co/RCm64ACjWn #OpenMiddleBook pic.twitter.com/ZRIqElbyes

— Robert Kaplinsky (@robertkaplinsky) October 17, 2019

Opinion Links
From a session lead by @AlexOverwijk, a good sentiment for any school or department:
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/aledaklassen/status/1185016447141142528

Thanks, @AlexOverwijk, for making explicit what I have felt for a while:

Teachers can make more of an impact when they work together and believe they can positively affect learning and effect change. #collectiveteacherefficacy #teamteaching #wrdsbmathhttps://t.co/Wn3VZHFkJM

— Aleda Klassen (@aledaklassen) October 18, 2019

Video/Audio Links
Some awesome addition of vectors applications here. Definitely a surprising result but it really shouldn't be if physics works the way it's supposed to
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4-L8UgPkOk

I have started the second season of the @OAMEtalks podcast (everyone has a podcast now, right?). This month we previewed the webinar from @jboninducharme
Curriculum Tags: All
https://talks.oame.on.ca/season-2

Image Links
Though this is science related, I think the sentiment of persistence and hard work are the order of the day with this post of a Nobel Prize winner's rejection letter of her research from Nature. Something for our students to see.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/pipcosper/status/1182799512621977600

This is the rejection letter for the work that just won the Nobel Prize. Don’t stop believing!
I should save all of mine and maybe one day some stranger will think it’s an amazing relic and tweet it... pic.twitter.com/JuJHkLkXnw

— Pippa Cosper MD, PhD (@pipcosper) October 11, 2019

Math Links for Week Ending Oct. 11th, 2019

Featured Links
Hey, it's Global Math Week. That means it's time to get your kids to explode some dots. You still have time to get your class hooked up. The great thing about exploding dots is that it is appropriate all age groups. It's got a low floor and the math can go way into grade 12 polynomials. Check out the intro video from @JamesTanton and then sign up your class at the Exploding Dots website below.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.explodingdots.org/

Resources Links
Wholly moly, when I agreed to be part of the Making Math Moments Virtual Summit, I didn't realize the calibre of the speakers that I would be aligned with. Check out the speaking list and reserve your spot for next month's virtual conference.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://makemathmoments.com/summit/



And for some more virtual talks on Fractions, check out this list.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
https://mailchi.mp/cbecfc374a43/jll38bi0dt-2671469?e=[UNIQID]

In this week's article, we get to look at Fractions #onhere and how they are discussed or used inside and outside the #MTBoS. https://t.co/GPWL62eXfV

S/O to #MTBoSers@AsymptoticLiz @DingleTeach @BerkeleyEverett @gfletchy

— Lauren Baucom (@LBmathemagician) October 9, 2019

Here's a nice resource from @HTheijsmeijer where she collected and organized a pile of grade 9 EQAO questions by strand
Curriculum Tags: MFM1P, MPM1D
https://twitter.com/HTheijsmeijer/status/1180477995640864770

Released this week - a curation of released grade 9 EQAO questions by strand and curriculum expectation (academic & applied). https://t.co/Cx45lqCX26 #MTBoS #iteachmath #icoachmath #onted #mathchatont

— Heather Theijsmeijer (@HTheijsmeijer) October 5, 2019

Here's a great idea when dealing with radian measure
Curriculum Tags: MHF4U
https://twitter.com/mathhombre/status/1181917244416114688

Probably my favorite data of the year. Birthdays in radians. pic.twitter.com/IoB1W6vkdM

— John Golden 🔗 (@mathhombre) October 9, 2019

And check out the connection of the above Tweet to @BenOrlin's recent post
Curriculum Tags: MHF4U
https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2019/10/09/whats-the-radius-of-a-day/

Opinion Links
As someone who has provided PD for teachers for many years I totally know that sometimes that PD falls flat. And everyone has an opinion on what PD they don't like but often don't have ideas about how to make it better. In this post @MarkChubb3 has some insight about what good PD could look like.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://buildingmathematicians.wordpress.com/2017/03/26/professional-development-what-should-it-look-like/

Video Links
This is an older post but it's the first time I saw this video from @Buzzmath. Cool stuff for dealing with collecting like terms and solving equations. Check out the link for other resources from @RobertKaplinsky
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P
http://robertkaplinsky.com/work/what-does-2000-calories-look-like/


Image Links
What a great way to help kids (really, all humans) really get a sense of how big a billion is.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
https://twitter.com/MikeFlynn55/status/1182095626193920000

This kind of math floors me. Just when I think I have a sense of the magnitude of 1 billion, something like this comes along and blows me away. pic.twitter.com/m7hJmSPjrM

— Mike Flynn (@MikeFlynn55) October 10, 2019

Math Links for Week Ending Oct 4th, 2019

Featured Links

In the latest episode of @Freakonomics Radio, they take on Math Education in America. They are not looking at the methods of teaching, however. They are looking at what is actually being taught and "spoiler altert" their data shows we should dump calculus and focus on data literacy. I definitely agree. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching calculus but very few people actually need it. There were a couple of bits that I liked, one was about the difference between what college professors wanted from students compared to what high school teachers thought they needed for college and how different those things were and the other was the survey results on who used which parts of math.

Curriculum Tags: All
http://freakonomics.com/podcast/math-curriculum/

Resource Links
Though in Ontario, there is no math course that teaches scientific notation directly, it is taught in the science courses. Here is a quick little @Desmos activity to help with that process. There are some nice animations and sorts to help students represent large and small numbers.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://blog.desmos.com/articles/new-scientific-notation-activity/


Here is a short and sweet dynamic tool to use when teaching the unit circle.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCF3M, MHF4U
https://twitter.com/von_Oy/status/1179509317629829121

Just something small here. A @Desmos unit circle for all those of you who are teaching trig this year.

And yes...the point *is* draggable around the circle.https://t.co/1smXYDDLyz pic.twitter.com/lCNjnlFWcg

— Suzanne von Oy (@von_Oy) October 2, 2019

For those of you who like to create your own @Desmos activities, they have just added the ability for students to upload photos into graphs while in Activity Builder.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://twitter.com/Desmos/status/1178718901351469056

New feature alert –

– students can now upload images in graphs in activities –

💣🤯🧹

All of you folks who assign graph art projects ... this is what you've been asking for.

— Desmos.com (@Desmos) September 30, 2019

Video Links
I love these videos of this YouTuber who does tool and mold making videos. So much practical geometry to show kids that there are applications to a lot of the stuff we do. In the first video he walks through the method to determine the centre of radius for a complicated shape but my favourite part was adjustable parallel tool (at about 8 min in) that he used in the second video where he is actually marking a cylinder in order to cut it into a hexagonal prism. The video is about how you could do such a thing if you didn't have a special "indexing" tool to do so.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MBF3C, MCF3M, MCT4C, MAP4C
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro1I03ktSa4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qYdcolOhGQ

It's cool to see all the math that goes into this Desmos graph to make the "caterpillar" springy. Great for any class dealing with complex functions to look at
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MHF4U
https://twitter.com/SumDumThum/status/1178917272733155329

Made an adorable stretchy caterpillar today: https://t.co/hsEhMLWmme pic.twitter.com/qLa21YK8ep

— Andrew Osborne (@SumDumThum) October 1, 2019

Image Links
I love that Canada is number one here. What questions come to mind with this infographic
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
https://twitter.com/joe_sisco/status/1180199831421235205

Nice graphic. @davidpetro314 @MathletePearce pic.twitter.com/mDEIxyXMNE

— Joe Sisco (@joe_sisco) October 4, 2019

Math Links for Week Ending Sept. 27th, 2019

Featured Links
Looking for resources on Climate change for Math class? Well so was @Stoodle and he got some great suggestions in the comments.  My favourite was the one on Teaching Climate Change with 24 New York Times Graphs. Check them all out in the comments
Curriculum Tags: MBF3C, MDM4U, MAP4C
https://twitter.com/stoodle/status/1175010969300414464

Completely too late to do this properly, but anyone have a good math-y climate change thing I could start class with? #MTBOS even just a graph we could notice/wonder

— Mattie B 🏳️‍🌈 (@stoodle) September 20, 2019

Resource Links
Are you looking for a new idea for kids to work on their spacial and proportional reasoning skills? Then @MarkChubb3 has some new puzzles for you. I really like his Skyscraper puzzles and these ones, I think are just as good. Give students one of each relational rod and have them cover up the figure seen. He's got several different templates for students to try.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://buildingmathematicians.wordpress.com/2019/09/25/spatial-puzzles-cuisenaire-cover-ups/

Video/Audio Links
A bunch of new podcasts added to the Math Podcast Page. The first one is a nice episode from @PlanetMoney on how using mode when talking about "average" changes the demographic.
Curriculum Tags: MBF3C, MDM4U
https://www.npr.org/2019/08/28/755191639/episode-936-the-modal-american

Also, the second season of the Estimation 180 podcast has started. And if you use the Estimation 180 website, this is a nice companion.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.estimation180.com/podcast.html







Though not a math related podcast, in general, the @AllusionistShow is great podcast about language and in this episode where they talk about indefinite hyperbolic numerals like 'zillion', 'squillion' and 'kajillion'.
Curriculum Tags:All
https://www.theallusionist.org/allusionist/zillions

The @StoryColider is a great story telling podcast about science (and sometimes math). I this episode, the second story is about Will Tran winning a math award in school after cheating on a math contest.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://www.storycollider.org/stories/2019/6/24/youthful-indiscretions-stories-about-being-young-and-dumb



Image Links
Who doesn't like Calculus humour
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U
https://twitter.com/centerofmath/status/1175030600836812801

We think everyone deserves a second derivative at the end of a long week!#FunFriday #DOMATH pic.twitter.com/5kOh7Rw06i

— Center of Math (@centerofmath) September 20, 2019

Looking for a challenge problem when dealing with geometric properties? Here's a way you could go. I love the use of the word "wonky"
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MFM1P
https://twitter.com/jamestanton/status/1175396207029440513

Draw a wonky five pointed star. The five angles at its tips are sure to add to 180 degrees. (Why?) What if we truncate the tips? Are the ten angles at the truncated tips sure to add to a certain angle? pic.twitter.com/rpnUIqqK3O

— James Tanton (@jamestanton) September 21, 2019