DAVID WEES

Thoughts from a reflective educator.

math

Math is not linear

November 5, 2011

Blanca Parra shared this Prezi with me, and I love it. It's going into my collection of resources I can share with people about how we can change mathematics education. I wonder if we could get RSA animate or someone with similar skills to create a video related to this.

 



Math in the real world: Marshmallow constructions

October 29, 2011

This is another post in my series of posts on math in the real world.

Building materials



Workplace mathematics

October 26, 2011

Here are some videos on mathematics in the workplace I'd like to watch later, when I get a chance. Thanks to Gary Davies and Lorri Carroll for sharing them with me.



Should we teach the standard algorithms for arithmetic?

October 18, 2011

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 be the only algorithms kids learn.



Mathematical Modelling for Real - Exploring Mathematics

October 18, 2011

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.



Eric Mazur: Memorization or understanding: are we teaching the right thing?

October 17, 2011

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.

 



I tried the Khan Academy

October 17, 2011

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 (from the Khan Academy and IBVodcasting.com) during classroom time.



Constructivist teaching is not "unassisted discovery"

October 11, 2011

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 "unassisted discovery" in their classrooms.