Making Sense of Logarithms

Edited By Brian Bushart @bstockus

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Online Professional Development Sessions

Making Sense of Logarithms
Presented by Michael Manganello (@m_manganello)

Logarithms are one of the most dreaded topics in the high school curriculum. Logarithms would make more sense if we helped students understand why logarithms were invented, how they were useful for simplifying computations, and how they continue to be useful in statistics.

Typically challenging topics can be made more relevant and interesting to students by invoking the human aspects of mathematical inventions and by exploring mathematical concepts intuitively before introducing formal definitions.

To join the meeting when it starts at 9pm Eastern (or RSVP if it’s before 9pm), click here.

Last week we had an explosive session of Global Math Department as James Tanton (@jamestanton) introduced us to exploding dots.

Check out the recording here.

It Came From the #MTBoS

Math On-A-Stick!

This week I will be glued to Twitter, watching what happens every day at Math On-A-Stick. Started last year by Christopher Danielson (@Trianglemancsd), Math on a Stick is a free exhibit at the Minnesota State Fair where kids can play and explore math in a way that few of them have ever done before. This includes tesselating turtles, Truchet tiles, pattern machines, egg sorts, and The Number Game. You can get a sense for the exhibit by seeing this short video.

In addition, visiting mathematicians come to the exhibit every day and show off whatever cool toys or patterns they bring. Megan Schmidt (@Veganmathbeagle) wrote up a nice post about bringing her spiral obsession to Math On-A-Stick.

Adding to the fun, Ilana Horn (@ilana_horn) and Melissa Grisalfi will be there doing research on how kids interact with math in this setting! Ilana wrote a quick summary of the project on her blog, and there is more to follow as her team examines the data they’ve collected.

Written by Kent Haines (@KentHaines)

When in Doubt, Listen to Fawn

At the start of each school year teachers begin to search for ways to make this school year better than the last. Some use the last publications and conferences to direct their new school year vision. Some use blog posts written by members of #mtbos. All should use Fawn Nyugen’s latest post!

My favorite of the 7 deadly sins of teaching maths is number 1. Ever since I decided to switch from traditional grading to standards based grading I have eliminated the idea of extra credit. In a close second was “Being an asshole”.

Rather you are entering your first week of school or fourth like me, these are definitely ideas you should use to challenge your current perspective and make the proper adjustments to make this year better than last.

Written by Jenise Sexton (@MrsJeniseSexton)

The Match Game

This show used to be on tv when I was a kid, and what’s happening these days in the #mtbos reminds me of it.

I’ve been saying for a long time that this is truly an exciting time to be a teacher, but my reason for feeling that way has shifted a bit. It used to be because of all the new tools like GeoGebra and Desmos, which we can match up with specific concepts. But now these tools are being matched with instructional practices to exponentially crank things up. For example, Michael Pershan (@mpershan) wrote about using Desmos Activity Builder to Talk About Student Work, Amy McNabb (@amcnabb3) tweeted how she is using the new Desmos card sort to make “Always, Sometimes, Never” activities. This summer, at TMC16, during David Wees’s (@davidwees) TMC16 session on Contemplate then Calculate, Alex Overwijk (@alexoverwijk) observed that it would be a perfect routine to introduce Fawn Nguyen’s Visual Patterns. Finally John Golden (@mathhombre) tweeted a link to this video about Joshua Kwon’s students, who are coding in math class, which he introduces to them with a Desmos activity.

Gene Rayburn would be proud!

Written by Audrey McLaren (@a_mcsquared)

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