What do chocolate and math have in common?

Keith Devlin's inaugural entry into the video game world: Wuzzit Trouble

innertubegames.net

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Wuzzit Trouble

In the author’s game, Wuzzit Trouble, the cute and fuzzy creatures must be freed from traps controlled by gearlike combination locks. Players collect keys to open the locks by solving puzzles of varying difficulty.

Read Keith Devlin's article in the American Scientist "The Music of Math Games" for more about Wuzzits, music and math.

Denver's Tech Sessions: Do they meet the CLIME Standard?

Click above for larger image

If the number of technology sessions (updated) indicates a tech Benchmark for conferences, then having 28% of the 700+ sessions is a good number. This certainly satisfies my goal of having the technology principle be noticed even without an overt strand designation in its name. In fact, if you use the NCTM search tool for the topic technology only 52 sessions (7% of the total) will appear. That's why CLIME continues to try to give a more accurate perspective on  how much technology there is or will be in Denver. Jeff Shih, program chair, promised me a good turn out of sessions and he was right. But as followers of this website know, the desire for a larger math 2.0 presence is desired. What's math 2.0 you ask? I describe it as a synergy of three components of the learning environment which includes (1) using dynamic math tools (2) use of Web 2.0 tools and (3) being a part of a dynamic learning community. This synergy produces study paths that are truly engaging, student centered, leading edge, and 21st century. What follows are some sesssions that I would go to anticipating a conversation that informs me about math 2.0 attributes.

1. Dynamic Math software
5 -     Chaos Games and Fractal Images
46 -   Collecting Live Data in Fathom
80 -   The Mathematics of Angry Birds
180 - Getting Serious about Games in Middle Grades Math (Lure of the Labyrinth)
207 - Do the Function Dance with Sketchpad 5
283 - The Gamification of Math: Research, Gaming Theory, and Math Instruction
502 - Help Students Dig into Data, Statistics, and Probability with TinkerPlots
279 - Math and Geography: Using Google Earth to Investigate Mathematics
609 - Mobile Math: Understanding the CORE Mathematics in Mobile Apps (CORE Math Tools)

2. Web 2.0 Tools
157 - Math Journal 2.0: Jump-Start Your Students' Reflections (blogging)
447 - Movie Making in Math
468 - Scan It, Solve It, Show It (QR Codes, BYOD-Bring your own device)
565 - Blogarithms: Converting Number Concepts into Talking Points
586 - Moving Beyond the Right Answer: Developing Students’ Math Communication Skills
707 - Sharing Student Lessons with iBooks Author, iBooks, and an iPad
717 - Effective Use of Virtual Manipulatives: Ready to Create Your Own?
724 - Viral Math Videos: A Hart-to-Hart Conversation

3. Dynamic Learning Communities
27 - Following Beginning Teachers’ Experiences through Online Communities: Proof of Reflection
143 - PLC: The Practices, the Lessons, the Collaborative
680 - An Invitation to Experience Online Lesson Study Firsthand

4. Math 2.0 Curriculum
141 - Learning Online and Outdoors: Integrating Geocaching into the Mathematics Classroom
184 - Keeping It Real: Teaching Math through Real-World Topics (mathalicious.org)
402 - Stories and Technology: Providing Mathematics Opportunities for All
560 - Powerful Online Tools Promote Powerful Mathematics (Illuminations)
684 - Tools and Technology for Modern Math Teaching (Dan Meyer)
685 - Computers in Early Childhood: Getting the Best of All Worlds

All technology related sessions

More about these sessions in the next blog.

Disruptive math at the upcoming NCTM Annual Conference

Disruptive project?

In almost every school there is a teacher (or a bunch of  teachers) doing something down the hall that the students love and that the administration condones/tolerates/admires/makes excuses for despite the fact that the teachers are not following th school's protocol to the letter (i.e. not prepping enough for the tests.) Other teachers are aware of what these disrupters are doing, but for one reason or another are not replicating since its not part of the school curriculum and would be way "too much work." So the disruptive activity continues without much fanfare.

One form of what these disruptive teachers are doing can be called "project based learning" where students individually or in groups are exploring questions or solving problems that are intrinsically interesting to them. In these classes the students have bought into the "jobs" that the teachers are offering them to do.* For example, the teacher may take the students out in the playground to measure shadows to determine the length of a shadow when the sun is highest in the sky as part of what's called the Noon Day project where students with the help of other students from other parts of the world recreate the measurement of the circumference of the earth that Eratosthenes did over 2200 years ago to a high degree of accuracy. The measurements were inspired by a video on Youtube of Carl Sagan telling the story of the experiment in a  compelling way. One of the reasons why this can be considered disruptive is that students need to go out and do their measurements around noon time when the sun is highest in the sky. Not always something easy to do in tightly scheduled school day. But these "disruptive" teachers find a way.

Upcoming Annual NCTM Conference this April in Denver 
I received the NCTM 2013 Annual Meeting preview in the mail recently which always reminds to do my usual analysis of technology sessions. Last year in Philadelphia 33% of the sessions had a technology component which was an all time record. (I've been keeping track of sessions since 1987 when there were 14 sessions devoted to Logo.)  Since one of last year's themes was technology, I expected the bubble to burst and the number of tech sessions to drop off to the usual percentage which is in the teens. But to my surprise it only dropped off slightly. Approximately 28% of the 724 sessions posted have something to do with technology. That is, the sessions had at least one technology key word in its description.  Here's one of the sessions that grabbed my attention.

Session 141
Learning Online and Outdoors: Integrating Geocaching into the Mathematics Classroom
http://nctm.confex.com/nctm/2013AM/webprogram/Session16507.html
Lucy Bush and Jeffrey Hall
Grade Band Audience: General Interest/All Audiences
Mile High 1 E/F (Convention Center)

Description: Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunt with many opportunities for mathematics education. From geospatial awareness to decryption, students use a variety of mathematical skills to find hidden treasures in the great outdoors. Alternatively, MathCaching websites award virtual treasures on the basis of content-specific capabilities.

It's amazing how easy it was to find more information about this presentation. I did a Google search using "Lucy Bush math" and discovered a 3 page article (see pages 20-22) written by the authors about this activity. Again as I did last year I'm asking speakers to provide updates to their talks that will be posted on the CLIME site.

You can see NCTM's listing of all 700+ sessions in Denver here.
Here is the list of the 200+ technology sessions.

If you are one of the speakers, please let me know so we can stay in touch and I can update your description with links, photos and whatever else you deem relevant. At the moment the NCTM listing only allows for attached downloads that you provide. CLIME's listing will be available for you to update right up and throughout the conference.


I'll be hunting for and reporting on other disruptive technology oriented activities that will be presented at the annual meeting in the next blog entry.

Reference
*Christensen, C., Horn, M., Johnson, C. Rethinking Student Motivation - Why Understanding the "Job" is Crucial for Improving Education

Educon 2.5 Debriefed

Mike Thayer at Educon 2.5

At Educon 2.5 in Philly there were 2 sessions with a math theme. The first one was led by Mike Thayer a high school math teacher in New Jersey. 


Watch entire session here.


His stated goal was to outline a foundational, incubator course that would prep students for future courses both math and otherwise. First there was a discussion of what topics should stay and what should be left out of the course. Trig identities was the first suggested cut. Others suggested their least favorite or important topics. 

Since my thoughts were focused on more radical alternatives, this topic by topic analysis seemed very unproductive. The pervasive grammar of school was rearing its ugly side and at this point clouding any hope of this group of very smart people coming up with a course that could truly make a difference. But soon it became apparent to Mike and others that maybe dropping/adding a few topics was not where we wanted to go. But then what would prepare students for more advanced courses they will study later on if not getting the topics right?  One participant suggested that the course  should focus on helping students "learn how to learn" and not worry about the tests because if kids know how to learn then test prep would "take care of itself." The course should also include lots of real world problem solving. Mike showed an the example from Dan Meyer's 101 questions where a real world photo appears and the students are asked what questions come to mind. One criticism of this approach was that most of the photos elicited questions having to do with proportional reasoning which made it limiting for high school pursuits. The course should be more than just real world because math is a world unto itself. Students should experience math in more abstract ways as well. But concrete experiences build models in students' minds that help to make the abstract concrete.

At this point Mike brought up the idea of students building things - having concrete experiences. There is a lot of math there. Also students should use programming to explore topics. All these experiences will help  students to learn how to think for themselves and become better problem solvers.


So what should such a beginning course look like? It definitely needs to be something different than just rearranging topics in current textbooks. 

What comes to my mind as a wonderful solution is Harold Jacobs classic textbook: Mathematics - A Human Endeavor. Edition 3. This book came out in 1994 and I always hoped that Jacobs would update it to include more technology, but it never happened. (It's still on my bucket list to do something about that.) Not only is this book solid mathematically, but it is highly readable and will motivate even the most reluctant math students to think mathematically. The teachers guide is one of the best ever written in my opinion.

 Anyone interested in "updating" this book with me for a course that would meet Mike's needs let me know. I have lots of spare time. :-)

Can Rocketship Launch a Fleet of Successful, Mass-Produced Schools?

Rocketship Education

John Merrow did a special PBS report on one the new schools in the charter school movement: Rocketship Education. Here you see a learning lab where students work independently on software that is intended to help the youngsters with math concepts.  According to Merrow the lab is not working out and plans are to move the computers back into the classroom.

What was interesting to me is that the students in the video were using a program called Jiji developed by Mind Institute. From my review of the software, I found it to be an interesting, pedagogically sound approach to learning math concepts. However it appears not to be working all that well at Rocketship. Merrow noted that some of kids became bored and would just guess at the answers.

See Mind Institute for details

This is an excellent example of a good program flopping because the context for using it is less than ideal. I think Jiji would work well in the context of a video game or other venue that would provide the motivation for doing the Jiji activities.

I'm glad to see that the Rocketship team is doing away with the learning labs in its current configuration. Smaller clusters of computers in classrooms or even better 1-1 classroom environment would allow for the teacher to do more math coaching in the classroom.