Month: October 2011
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Based on this plot, can you tell me when it started snowing? Or, can we fit a sine curve to it?
Now, I’m biased of course since I got a MS degree in Atmospheric Science, but I feel like weather and climate is one of the biggest untapped wells of potential math problems. I think there are two reasons for that (aside from the “lack of expertise” / “it’s not in the textbook” angles): 1) The…
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An oversimplified model of an inquiry-based lesson, with visual aids
Last week, I mentioned that, having begun to attempt to slay one of the two giants of inquiry-based math instruction, I’d be steering into a potentially trickier aspect of inquiry based instruction: namely that of instruction and facilitation. Most of us learned math like this. We have decades of evidence suggesting that this method of…
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Inquiry-Based instruction, in a PNG-nutshell
In talking to math teachers about an Inquiry- , Project- , or Problem-Based approach, these are the following questions that come up most often. 1) “How am I supposed to cover all the standards using this approach?“ and, 2) “So, when do I actually teach?” An attempt at the first question is reflected in the…
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7th and 8th Grade additions to the Great Inquiry-Based Curriculum Mapping Project
If you haven’t read last week’s introductory post or description of the Great Inquiry-Based Curriculum Mapping Project, please do so. Here’s the short description: there are some open google docs that tie math standards to activities, problems, projects, blog-posts and/or ideas. There have already been some great aggregation of ideas and the documents continue to…
emergent math 