Math Links for Week Ending Mar. 14th, 2014

Even though I posted a Pi Day link last week (to my Pinterest Page), most of the links this week will relate to Pi since today is actually Pi Day. There have been new finds this week including this page of 10 Pi Day lessons, Buffon's needle and these two videos (posted today). One from Numberphile (one of my favourite Pi properties) and the other from Vi Hart (another in her anti Pi Day series).
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.mytowntutors.com/2014/03/pi-day-lessons-top-10-websites-for-pi-day/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUErNWBOkUM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iUh_CSjaSw

Key Curriculum, the maker's of Sketchpad, have really started to include a lot of web based sketches (ie no Sketchpad needed) in this one they have several different derivations of Pi using geometric and dynamic means.
Curriculum Tags: Gr8
http://blog.keycurriculum.com/2014/03/%CF%80-day-2014/











The Language of Functions and Graphs is a resource that might be old but there are a lot of great problems here for the picking. This used to be a paid resource but now its available for free in PDF form, both the black line masters and the teacher resource. Thanks to Michael Pershan and Dan Meyer for this one.
Curriculum Tags: MPM1D, MPM2D, MCR3U
http://www.mathshell.com/materials.php?item=lfg&series=tss

Keith Devlin has written a lot about Fibonacci and he has now put out a new video debunking a lot of the myths about the Golden Ratio and Fibonacci.
Curriculum Tags: All
https://vimeo.com/88132964

Why not at least one image for Pi Day
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.pi314.net/imagespi/Pi_day/2008_PiDayCartoon_Grand.jpg

Here is a neat little poster that talks about different types of numbers. It could be good to start some discussions on what characterizes a number. Thanks to Edudemic for this one.
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.incidentalcomics.com/2012/01/meet-numbers.html

Math Links for Week Ending Nov. 1st, 2013

Spectacular visualization from the NBA. You choose the team and the player and see where they are hot and where they are not. They have also done some more detailed analysis of how entire teams do against each other that is pretty cool.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://hotshotcharts.com/

I am always on the lookout for datasets for analysis. Did you know the wettest place in Canada is Henderson, BC? Or that the coldest place is Snag, Yukon? Here is data on weather extremes in Canada
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://www.currentresults.com/Weather-Extremes/Canada/

Correlation is often confused with causation. This is a problem when people believe that just because two variables are correlated that one of the variable's change is the cause of the other's. Here is a tutorial video on proving causation.
Curriculum Tags: MDM4U
http://learnandteachstatistics.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/proving-causation/

A throwback to Felix Baumgartner's Redbull Stratos Jump from Explore Learning. A full three part lesson with links to specific Gizmos. Now the lesson basically focus on physics but I still contend that all of the metrics that were on the screen as he first rose in the capsule that could be used for a lesson on ratio, rate and speed. When it was happening I actually took some screen shots. You can download all 20 of them here.
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MPM1D, MFM1P
http://explorelearning.blogs.com/ontario/2013/10/fearless-freefall-felix-updated.html

I thought this was a neat way to collect data. Play Mastermind and then do the analysis. In this case its done in a 4th grade class but this could easily be adapted to be done in a Data Management class when dealing with single variable statistics.
http://rationalexpressions.blogspot.com/2013/10/mastermind-part-1-solving-and-making.html
http://rationalexpressions.blogspot.com/2013/10/mastermind-part-2-refining-our-notion.html
http://rationalexpressions.blogspot.com/2013/10/mastermind-part-3-whats-typical-number.html

What is it like to be a mathematician?
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.slate.com/what_is_it_like_to_be_a_mathematician






The myth of "I'm Bad at Math". A lot of discussion about this article on the Interwebs. Lots of people on both sides. Although the article doesn't mention it explicitly. The theory tends to be that many have what is called a fixed mindset rather than a growth mindset. That is, with a fixed mindset you think that you are born with a certain ability and that won't change. Whereas a growth mindset is when you believe that you can always continue to learn. Recent brain info seems to suggest that the growth mindset is supported. Check the following articles out for yourself.
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/the-myth-of-im-bad-at-math/280914/

That being said here is a counter point. Thanks to @mathtans for pointing this one out.
http://rationalexpressions.blogspot.ca/2013/10/someone-is-wrong-on-interne-bad-at-math.html

Here is some research to support the idea of how foster the growth model of learning
http://dev.opeq.blenderbox.com/uploads/files/868cea31-5888-4e45-a832-62b4377dbbfb.pdf

And to finish this topic off, let's hear about being a math major. I saw this a last week and forgot to put it in. Thanks to Sylvie Gava-Zompanti for reminding me of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs9aGVUZ3YA

Ha ha funny. From Vine (and on the Vine YouTube channel) here is a clip about nerd vandalism
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvHpN9WeFAA

New from Vi Hart for Fractals and Logs. After I see her videos like this I think she should be ending with "See what I did there?"
Curriculum Tags: MHF4U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc8sWN_jNF4

The Beauty of Mathematics in widescreen
Curriculum tags: All
http://vimeo.com/77330591

Math Links for Week Ending June 14th, 2013

Hans Rosling does it so suscinctly. The way he shows data makes it so easy to see why understanding it is so important.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxbprYyjyyU
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U

I love this "heat" map. Which birth dates are the most popular. There is a wealth of data here. Not just in the fact that the actual data table is available but in the extra post about how people missinterpret this type of graph. And for that matter I like this blog. He tries to create a new visualization every day
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MBF3C, MDM4U
http://thedailyviz.com/2012/05/12/how-common-is-your-birthday/






Apparently there is no reason to teach anything about polynomials and functions. Thanks Wolfram Alpha now I'm out of a job! I am kidding here but the tools now available on the knowledge engine are just fascinating and really should cause you to pause about how you might incorporate some of these tools into investigations in your classes.
Curriculum Tags: All Secondary
http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2013/05/28/solving-basic-properties-of-functions-and-equations-made-easy/




Need some summer PD. How about Classroom Adventures in Math at the University of Toronto
Curriculum Tags: All
https://math.escalator.utoronto.ca/home/classroom-adventures-in-mathematics-caim/

I love Dan Meyer's Latest post about the "Unengageables". Being someone who gives a lot of workshops I know people are thinking "this won't work for my students" and I think Dan really summed up the situation succinctly (from a student's perspective):
"They may even resist you. They signed their "didactic contract" years and years ago.They signed it. Their math teachers signed it. The agreement says that the teacher comes into class, tells them what they're going to learn, and shows them three examples of it. In return, the students take what their teacher showed them and reproduce it twenty times before leaving class. Then they go home with an assignment to reproduce it twenty more times.
Then here you come, Ms. I-Just-Got-Back-From-A-Workshop, and you want to change the agreement? Yeah, you'll hear from their attorney."
Curriculum Tags: All
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=17193

I really like this video from Numberphile. Its about what it means to truly be random and the difference between random and psuedo random numbers. It is kind of technical (and a bit long) but I think it really hits the idea of what randomness is. And I love that he actually actually generates random numbers by actually using a radioactive sample of
Curriculum Tags: All
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxP30euw3-0

There has got to be a geometry question in here somewhere
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hbQ4DDX2Xg

Climate and XKCD. nuff said
Curriculum Tags: Gr7, Gr8, MDM4U
http://xkcd.com/1225/