Constructivist teaching is not "unassisted discovery"
I've been challenged recently to provide research which supports "unassisted discovery" over more traditional techniques for teaching math. This is not possible, as there are no teachers actually using...
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Learning Origami
I started learning origami again this past weekend. So far I've built a swan, and a couple of paper airplanes that are more advanced than what I usually make but none of it has been particularly...
View ArticleWhen should we introduce kids to programming?
I recommend listening to this interview of Douglas Rushkoff on CBC Spark byNorah Young. Rushkoff's recommendation is that children should learn a little bit of a taste of programming right after they...
View ArticleI tried the Khan Academy
As an experiment, I started out the beginning of this year and tried flipping my classroom, but with a slight twist: I have extra instructional time, so students were to watch the instructional videos...
View ArticleEric Mazur: Memorization or understanding: are we teaching the right thing?
I recommend this talk by Eric Mazur on why he switched his teaching from lecture based teaching to peer instruction based approach. It's more than an hour long, but it really is worth it. How does this...
View ArticleMathematical Modelling for Real - Exploring Mathematics
This playlist has some very interesting videos from the Open University on their YouTube channel on the topic of mathematical modelling, and how it is used in different contexts.Topic:...
View ArticleShould we teach the standard algorithms for arithmetic?
Just posted this comment on this article lamenting the loss of the standard algorithms in Mathematics classrooms.Should we teach the standard algorithms for arithmetic? Absolutely, but they shouldn't...
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Math in the real world: Marshmallow constructions
This is another post in my series of posts on math in the real world.My wife, son, and I went to a kids science event at SFU today, and at one table they had some marshmallow diagrams set up to...
View ArticleMathematics in the real world: World Statistics
This is another post in my series on mathematics in the real world. Thanks to a colleague of mine, I rediscovered the Google Public Data explorer. Within 10 minutes, I had constructed the above graph,...
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Math in the real world: Gardening
My uncle called me today, and asked me a math question. Normally, I get called and asked technology related questions, but occasionally people remember that I have a mathematics background and call me...
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