Here is a math lesson I put together for the New York Times Learning Network that is built around parsing income information and properly filling out tax forms.
This lesson supplies students with cost-of-living scenarios and mocked-up W2 and 1099-INT forms and challenges them to work their way through Federal Form 1040EZ.
A few older students might like to try this, too!
My latest contribution to the New York Times Learning Network is a math lesson built around investigating the indicators analysts use to classify and predict economic recovery.
https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/on-the-road-to-recovery-analyzing-economic-indicators/
By collecting and analyzing data presented in Times infographics and other official sources, students can analyze the various economic indicators to assess the current condition of the U.S. economy.
By comparing and contrasting the various indicators, and connecting these abstract measures with their own personal experiences, students begin to build understanding of the complex task of quantifying economic performance.
Collaboration and sharing with virtual colleagues has become an invaluable part of my professional life. Like so many others, I turn to social media for teaching ideas, mathematical conversation, and a supportive and constructive space to reflect.
The extent to which this works continues to amaze me. And every now and then something happens that reminds me just how remarkable it is.
Recently, I received an email from an English teacher in my school whom I’d never met. Apparently this teacher had been using 12 Ways to Use the New York Times to Develop Math Literacy with her students all year, completely unaware of my connection to it! Only because we share a student in common were we ever made aware of our indirect collaboration.
Hopefully as tools and practices continue to grow and expand, the gap between the physical and the digital school will continue to close. Until then, there are sure to be many more amusing moments like this!
While working on the geometry of the Platonic Solids, we spent some class time constructing them from chopsticks and marshmallows.
We had a lot of fun putting them together!
Unfortunately, the more complicated structures weren’t really strong enough to stand on their own. And after the fact, we realized that we probably shouldn’t leave marshmallows sitting around the classroom indefinitely.
But it certainly was lively way to wrap up a unit on geometric solids! You can see more pictures of the activity on my Facebook page.
This is a short summary of recent research into how bilingualism strengthens the brain.
The details are a bit fuzzy, as is always the case in social science, but these results would not surprise me. In fact, it’s surprising to me that people ever thought bilingualism would be a hindrance to cognitive function, as opposed to an aid.
I think about bilingualism often as a math teacher. I try to consistently preach mathematical bilingualism, imploring students to train themselves to see problems both algebraically and geometrically. Being able to see a situation in two (or more) ways not only creates great flexibility in problem solving, but it strengthens the overall inter-connections between mathematical ideas.
It seems only natural to me that traditional bilingualism would do the same. Not only does it offer multiple filters for processing the world, but the development and maintenance of the cognitive systems is a real intellectual workout.