DAVID WEES

Thoughts from a reflective educator.

Sharing ideas about math in the real world

July 30, 2011

I'm very interesting in finding ways mathematics is present in the world outside of the classroom, which I'll call the "real world." Obviously what students do in the classroom is part of the real world, but too often in math instruction school math is completely separate from the contexts kids experience in their day to day lives. I'd like to build a collection of resources for math teachers so that we aren't all scrambling in the dark looking for ways to incorporate more contextual learning in our teaching. Note that I'm not at all opposed to teaching mathematics which is highly interesting but has no real world context. I'm just opposed to teaching math which neither has context or any pizazz.

Here are some of the ways you can share your thoughts and suggestions on real world math.

  • Join the Flickr group here. Make sure that each of the photos you include has a description of why it represents a mathematical idea. Your students could also join this group and share their own ideas!
     
  • Blog about real world mathematics. Use the tag 'realmath' in your blog post (all one word) so that other people can find it by searching. Post a link to your blog post on Twitter (or any other social network) with the hashtag #.
     
  • Post ideas under # directly on Twitter (no blog post required).
     
  • Contact me through the form above and (assuming it's appropriate!) I'll post your idea about real world math here.

Please suggest other ways we can share ideas for context based mathematics and I'd be happy to include them here.

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About David

David is a mathematics teacher and a learning specialist for technology at Stratford Hall in Vancouver, BC. He has been teaching since 2002, and has worked in Brooklyn, London, and Bangkok before moving back to Canada. He has his Masters degree in Educational Technology from UBC, and is the co-author of a mathematics textbook. He has been published in ISTE's Leading and Learning, Educational Technology Solutions, The Software Developers Journal, The Bangkok Post and Edutopia. He blogs with the Cooperative Catalyst, and is the Assessment group facilitator for Edutopia. He has also helped organize the first Edcamp in Canada, and TEDxKIDS@BC.

Comments

A Must Have Board Game

submitted by Susan R. on August 2, 2011

Hi David,

Love your site. As a Math teacher I'm always looking for new ideas and ways of teaching "real" math to my students. I don't like using text books and therefor I'm always looking for great manipulatives. I recently took my relatives suggestion and bought a Math game called Mathopoly, made in Canada by a Math teacher. I have to say that my students LOVE it, and as a teacher it is fantastic as it allows me to sit back and monitor and assess skills. Trust me, this is NOT a typical math board game. It has "real world" applications in it and incorporates so much math (based entirely on curriculum). This really is a must as there are not many games out there that middle years and high school students will play. I found it funny that the kids thought of it as "Cool and Retro" to be playing board games in school. The site is www.mathopoly.ca, and I found that there is a great price break on shipping when you order more than one copy (as I couldn't find it in any stores in my area) which I now am doing for fall.

Thanks

Susan

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