While in Berkeley, CA for MSRI’s Critical Issues in Mathematics Education conference, I happened upon this lovely piece of public art. Walking around the sphere I wondered about the maximum percentage of sky able to sneak through the numerous nested layers.
I’m excited to head to San Diego next month for the 2019 NCTM Annual Meeting, the largest gathering of math educators in the country.
This is the third year in a row I’ll be presenting at NCTM, and I’ll be giving two talks. On Friday at 4:30 pm it’s “The Problem with Pentagons” (Session 560), my talk on the recently completed classification of plane tilings. This is modern mathematics with direct classroom connections–it’s a great way to show students that math is alive and always evolving. This is a talk I’ve given several times before, and is based in part on my column for Quanta magazine.
On Saturday at 9:45 am I’ll be co-facilitating the workshop “Assessing Mathematical Reasoning Through Engaging Group Tasks” (Session 636) with my colleague Andrew Wille. This presentation is based on work Andrew and I have been doing that emphasizes rigor, collaboration, and engagement in the math classroom. We’ll share some innovative approaches to task design and assessment, and talk about an overall framework for evaluating mathematical reasoning. This is a new presentation for us both: The response to our recent workshop with Math for America teachers was fantastic, so we are looking forward to bringing it to NCTM.
If you will be at NCTM San Diego, please keep the above presentations in mind as you plan your conference. And as in the past, I’m grateful to Math for America for providing financial support to make professional trips like this possible.
Related Posts
My latest column for Quanta Magazine explores the role that evidence plays in mathematics, a field better known for its reliance on logical proof.
For example, do you know the next term in this sequence?
1, 2, 4, 8, 16
You might be surprised!
“Mathematics has a long history of defying expectations and forcing us to expand our imaginations. That’s one reason mathematicians strive for proof, not just evidence. It’s proof that establishes mathematical truth. All available evidence might point to 32 as the next number in our sequence, but without a proof, we can’t be certain.
Some simple examples involving high school math show how evidence can lead us toward proof in mathematics, but can also lead us astray if we aren’t careful. You can learn more by reading the article at Quanta Magazine, which is freely available here.
Next week I’m heading to the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in Berkeley, CA to participate in the 2019 Critical Issues in Mathematics Education (CIME) conference.
CIME brings together academics, researchers, industry partners, and teachers to discuss important issues in education. The theme of this year’s conference is mathematical modeling in K-16 education. Here’s a summary of the goals from the conference website.
The CIME workshop on MM will bring together mathematicians, teacher educators, K-12 teachers, faculty and people in STEM disciplines. As partners we can address ways to realize mathematical modeling in the K-12 classrooms, teacher preparation, and lower and upper division coursework at universities. The content and pedagogy associated with teaching mathematical modeling needs special attention due to the nature of modeling as a process and as a body of content knowledge.
I’m proud to be representing K-12 teachers as well as Math for America at this year’s CIME, where I will be presenting as part of the conference’s opening panel along with Jo Boaler, Ricardo Cortez, and Maria Hernandez.
A full schedule and list of speakers is available at the CIME conference website.
UPDATE: The full video of our panel discussion can be seen here.
Today we celebrate a Permutation Day! I call days like today permutation days because the digits of the day and the month can be rearranged to form the year.
We can also consider today a Transposition Day, as we need only a single transposition (an exchange of two numbers) to turn the year into the day and date.
Celebrate Permutation Day by mixing things up! Try doing things in a different order today. Just remember, for some operations, order definitely matters!