At the Showcase you can meet Elizabeth Lay, MathHappens’ Program Manager who is developing an innovative new unit. MathHappens has obtained an original manuscript written by Texas surveyor Robert Creuzbauer that details a dual system of land measurement standards unique to Texas. The new unit will connect Texas History and Mathematics curricula addressing TEKS for both math and history.
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Introduction We ask our students to imagine a huge variety of scenarios in math class: trains approaching each other, roller coasters, boats sailing into the wind, buying ice cream, baking cakes, filling vases, sharing pizzas and on. But our students come from a wide variety of backgrounds, with very different life experiences and may not be able to relate to
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We are excited to bring two backpacks full of MathHappens goodies for door prizes. Paola Garcia and I are co-presenting a session with star Austin High math teacher Mardi Nott. Participants are going to look into each others eyes and discover the power of geometry to analyze light reflections, using similar triangles to reveal the height or distance of objects
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MathHappens participated in the playground where we had an opportunity to show our models, and debut the complete set of Tessellating pentagons as well as Penrose tiles. In addition we offered a session on working with the museum community to combat math misery (presentation slides here), and build a sense of purpose and community in math class. Here’s a handout
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On Saturday, Mardi Nott presented about math field trips with MathHappens at the AACTM Winter Conference. AACTM stands for Austin Area Council of Teacher of Mathematics, which is affiliated with the National Council of Teacher of Mathematics (NCTM). Our presentation slides are available here. Mardi presented about field trips she has done to the Austin Nature and Science Center, Harry
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Very excited to participate in this conference. Lauren, Abdul, Paola and Ben all attended and also led sessions and learned a lot about this new format. Discussion based, the sessions are facilitated rather than led. Project based learning, maker spaces, equity and math were all on the topic lists. Teachers were really interested in the Napier’s Bones models we
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This evening we headed to the Thinkery which is hosting an event for educators. MathHappens interns Paola Garcia, Josephine Sheng and Ben Duong provided information on three field trips that will help teachers help students understand math in context and possibly answer the infamous “so what” question. In addition we will be making and designing with the Spiral of Theodorus.
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Something we’ve been enjoying since the summer is introducing teachers to laser cutters. Teachers are always being creative when making lesson plans so teaching them how to use a laser cutter gives them another resource to use in their creative endeavors. At the end of June, Abdulkarim presented to math teachers at the Math Teachers’ Circle of Austin. He invited
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We had a great time presenting our session – link to powerpoint here, and we look forward to hearing from some of the educator leaders we met here. They work in various countries around the Caribbean as well as the US, England and Europe. We attended their last conference in Boulder, CO in 2015 where we got some inspirations and ideas
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A great group on a rainy Sunday met to learn to use the big Epilog lasers from MakeATX experts Zoe and Devon.