Resources

Next week I’ll be attending and presenting at the New York State Master Teacher Program’s annual Summer Conference at SUNY Cortland.

The NYSMTP summer conference brings together Master Teachers from around New York state for two days of professional learning and networking. The theme of this year’s conference is “Convergence”, and features presentations from Dr. C. Alex Young from NASA, mathematician Steven Strogatz from Cornell, and New York’s Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia.

I’ll be presenting Scratch Across the Math Curriculum with Dan Anderson, a Master Teacher from New York’s Central Region. Dan and I will be sharing our work bringing computer science into math class using the Scratch programming language. This is a continuation of the work I’ve been sharing at workshops and conferences across the country the past several years.

I’m proud to be a part of the NYS Master Teacher program through Math for America, the NYC-based organization that served as a model for the state program, and I’m grateful to MfA for their support in participating in events like the NYSMTP’s summer conference.

Related Posts

• Making Math with Scratch — Scratch Ed
• New York State Master Teacher Program

I performed at a Story Collider event earlier this year and now my story is featured on their podcast!

The mission of the Story Collider is to share true, personal stories about science. Their latest podcast is titled Loneliness: Stories About Finding Friends, and it features my story about how my relationship with math has changed over the course of my life and career. It also includes a poignant story from physicist Cindy Joe about her experience working at Fermilab and her pet snail.

You can find the podcast, and the transcript of my story here, and you can see a video of my talk here.

Related Posts

• Story Collider Performance
• Speaking
• My TEDx Talk

Like so many in the mathematical community, I was deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Alexander Bogomolny.

Alex built and curated an incredible website, Cut-the-Knot.org, that showcased the playfulness, creativity, beauty, and rigor of mathematics. When I was studying to become a high school teacher, I remember listing Cut the Knot as one of my favorite mathematical resources. Twenty years later, there still isn’t anything quite like what he created.

I learned a tremendous amount of geometry and trigonometry thanks to Alex. His resources opened up new worlds to me, helped shape my thinking, and directly impacted my classroom practice. After I started a math research course at my school, his website inspired dozens of student projects. And his work often inspired me to do and to write about math.

I was excited to find him on Twitter many years ago, where he continued to share resources, pose puzzles, and engage our community in problem solving and reflection. It was a privilege to cross paths with him so often.

Alex did what so many of us aspire to do: He made a tremendous impact spreading the joy, wonder, and challenge of mathematics. The world of mathematics is poorer for his passing, but so much richer for his life and work. Thank you, Alex.

Photo Credit: Nassim Taleb

Thanks to Nassim Taleb for sharing the news of Alex’s passing, as well as his lovely tribute. Please read the other moving tributes to Alex by Jim Wilder and Gary Davis.