CTL 2012: The Write Angle for Teaching Math

I had the pleasure of running a workshop at this weekend’s Celebration of Teaching and Learning in New York City.  The workshop explored ways to inspire and structure student writing in math class, and was sponsored by Math for America.

In addition to the workshop, I wrote a companion piece for the CTL’s Edblog, titled  “The Write Angle for Teaching Math“:

http://thirteencelebration.org/blog/edblog/edblog-the-write-angle-for-teaching-math/3193/

The incorporation of writing into math class has played a pivotal role in my development and evolution as a math teacher.  This article discusses some of the ways I get students writing about math, both technically and creatively.

Writing in math class opens up a whole new world for both teachers and students.  Give it a try!  You might be surprised at where it takes you.

By patrick honner, ago

Spherical Geometry Explorer

This is a simple and powerful tool for exploring some basic ideas of spherical geometry.

http://www.math.psu.edu/dlittle/java/geometry/spherical/toolbox.html

In addition to investigating points, lines, and line segments on the surface of sphere, you can construct triangles, antipodes, and even circles in spherical geometry!

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a good interactive spherical geometry applet is worth a thousand well-drawn diagrams!

By patrick honner, ago

Celebration of Teaching and Learning: In the Classroom

I will be running an “In the Classroom” workshop at the 2012 Celebration of Teaching and Learning.  The conference is organized by New York and New Jersey public television stations, and hosts over 10,000 educators from around the world.

My workshop, “That’s a Good Question!” will focus on inspiring and structuring writing in math class.  It will run on Saturday from 2:30 -3:45 pm.

http://thirteencelebration.org/blog/bios/presented-by-math-for-america-5/2979/

I am honored to be presenting at this conference, and proud to be doing so as a representative of Math for America.

Enjoy the Celebration!

By patrick honner, ago

Underwater Optimal Paths

This is an amazing application of geodesics and vector functions:  finding the shortest underwater path.

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/underwater-swarms-robots-0308.html

Robotic crafts that sweep the ocean depths in order to map the sea floor, root out pollution, or search for sunken treasure frequently need to answer the question “What is the best way to get from point A to point B?”

Finding the best path could mean many different things:  shortest in distance, shortest in time, shortest in energy used.  And it can be a tough problem even under the best of circumstances, much less when strong and variable ocean currents  are concerned!

But this team of mathematicians, engineers, and ocean scientists at MIT have done it.  Not only have they come up with a good algorithm for finding optimal paths for single crafts, but their methods also solve the problem for formations of crafts!

Another astonishing application of mathematics.

By patrick honner, ago
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