Math Links for Week Ending Oct. 25th, 2013

Who said that math couldn't be emotional? Watch this father react after his son brings home a C mark.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls9Cg8iaq1s

I really like this post about giving a real reason to use ratios. Check it out: "Give them a recipe that involves two quantities, such as lemons and cups of sugar and ask them how to make more lemonade that tastes the same and less lemonade that tastes the same. Have them record different values in a labeled table.". See more examples of this train of thought. Thanks to Dan Meyer for this one.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1D
http://nicoraplaca.com/one-way-introduce-ratios-make-sense-students/

Try out the Desmos Des-Man project. Have your kids flex their Domain and Range muscle by drawing pictures of faces with functions
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCF3M
http://blog.desmos.com/post/62158789621/des-man-a-desmos-labs-project

The candle is burning at one end at Tap into Teen Minds with another three act math task. Extrapolation, interpolation in scatterplots here. Complete with videos and data.
Curriculum Tags: MFM1P, MPM1D, MDM4U, MAP4C
http://tapintoteenminds.com/2013/10/14/candles-burning-3-act-math-task/

Interesting article about research that suggests why there are fewer women in mathematics than there should be. This XKCD comic kinda sums it up. Thanks to Mark Esping for this one.

Curriculum Tags: All
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2013/10/21/the-need-for-belonging-in-math-and-science/

Can you use early math skills to predict skills later in life? There is research to suggest this is true about learning things like fractions but is it true for numeracy skills in babies?
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/10/babies-born-with-math-skills/

Last week I posted a video from the TV show Person of Interest and @ChrisHunter36 helped me find a better version and then I found that he had posted more here
Curriculum Tags: All
http://reflectionsinthewhy.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/teacher-of-interest-episode-1/
http://vimeo.com/58436004

Oh, legos
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://xkcd.com/1281/

Thanks to Edudemic for pointing this one out.
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCF3M, MHF4U
http://www.edudemic.com/best-math-chart/ 

Math Links for Week Ending May 10th, 2013

Right out of the gate, a great post from Dan Meyer. He has been showering us with 3Act Tasks for years now but now some more detailed info on how to actually execute them in class. Read the entire blog post here (including all the great comments, particularly Kate's about what might happen when you try to do one of these):
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=16470
Curriculum Tags: All

I really liked this "real world" task dealing with speeding tickets given by the police but measured by pilots in the air using hash marks on the roads. I remember as a kid, my dad getting one of these on the 401.
http://MrHonner.com/2013/04/09/calculus-gave-me-a-speeding-ticket/
Curriculum Tags: MCV4U




The first of two posts from the Square Root of Negative One on Trig. Both are activities. This first one is a hand related way to remember trig ratios of special angles. One thing I like about this post (besides the insights) are the links to others that have posted about this so that you can get many perspectives.
http://squarerootofnegativeoneteachmath.blogspot.ca/2013/05/trig-hand.html
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCF3M, MHF4U



The second is a series of flash card activities that deal with trig ratios and various angles. I like this because with a single set of cards, she has come up with sev
eral ideas of how to implement them in the class (even giving insight as to what might go wrong).
http://squarerootofnegativeoneteachmath.blogspot.ca/practice.html
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCF3M, MHF4U



Hey? You want some math comics, how about this site that is chock full of them: Weapons of Math Destruction. If there was social commentary of math and education of math, this might be it.
http://www.weaponsofmathdestruction.com/thumbnails.cfm
Curriculum Tags: All

I really liked this article from a math teacher about what its like to have math anxiety. I think that a problem that many of has as math teachers is that most of us probably did well in math and thus have no empathy for someone who struggles. And by not having that perspective we might actually dismiss any issues that kids have as trivial. But read this article and particularly, I like the bullets at the end of the typical kid who can't do math.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/04/math_teacher_explains_math_anxiety_and_defensiveness_it_hurts_to_feel_stupid.html
Curriculum Tags: All

We will round out this week with a neat animation created using oscillating sine waves. Nice application of trig functions
Curriculum Tags: MCR3U, MCF3M, MHF4U
http://gizmodo.com/this-animation-based-on-oscillating-sine-waves-is-utter-493970700

OSCILLATE from Daniel Sierra on Vimeo.

Math LInks for Week Ending Jan 18th, 2013

The Wild About Math blog tries to bring mathematics to the masses and has a series of interviews with people from the mathematics community. In this post, he has an over hour long interview with Steven Strogatz (Author of "The Joy of x" & "Calculus of Friendship" among other things). Its not a super professional interview but it is worth it to listen to for Strogatz. A few things that I heard that I liked were that the name Rational numbers has to do with the root word "ratio" and not in reference to being reasonable and that the dentist calls the gunk on your teeth "calculus" which comes from calcium. Another neat thing that resonated with me was the idea that in order to reach his readers, he does so with empathy for the way they feel about math.
http://wildaboutmath.com/2013/01/14/steven-strogatz-inspired-by-math-16/
Curriculum Tags: All

The Centre for Algebraic Thinking was developed to help fight problems with understanding algebra. The video, below, explains the impetus. Its a little boring at the beginning but it talks about what is on the site towards the end. In particular I like the Formative assessment questions and the Technology summary.
http://algebraicthinking.org/
Curriculum: All

 

 A Vi Hart video from last fall. This one is about vectors so it might be a nice addition to any discussion in Calculus & Vectors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwIs1nlDQ2I 

Curriculum Tags: MCV4U