An invitation to the upcoming Indigenous Math Education Symposium 2025 (online in May)

 Hi everyone. I just got the following notice from my colleague, Dr. Cynthia Nicol -- highly recommended if you can be there, virtually! Here's the link to the Indigenous Math Network too.

Cheers

Susan

***************

Dear Friends

 

 

SAVE THE DATE!

 

 

You are invited to the 2025 Indigenous Math K-12 Symposium – Virtual

 

To reach our urban and rural Indigenous Math Education network educators the Indigenous Math Education Symposium 2025 will be held virtually.

 

We invite you to 2 exciting virtual sessions:

 

Session 1: Tuesday May 13 3:30 – 5:00pm PT

Keynote address – in the process of confirming and it will be exciting!

 

Session 2: Tuesday May 20 3:30 – 5:00pm PT

Igniting the Sparkle Sharing Circle: Teaching mathematics with Indigenous perspectives and practices: What are we learning? Educators share their projects, questions, ideas, and learnings.

 

Registration will be available by April 7 2025 . Details to follow.

 

The 2025 Indigenous Math K-12 Symposium is an opportunity for teachers, administrators, Ministry representatives, community members, and academics to connect, explore, imagine and share new ideas, resources and research on Indigenous mathematics education from Kindergarten to Grade 12.

 

Purpose of the Symposium is to:

• share research and educational projects about improving Indigenous math education K-12
• develop community connections to facilitate and support improving Indigenous mathematics education

 

Visit the Indigenous Math Education Network: https://indigenous.mathnetwork.educ.ubc.ca/

 

Please direct questions about the symposium to: 
Cynthia Nicol cynthia.nicol@ubc.ca

 

Please share this email with your colleagues!

All the best to each of you for the holiday break

Cynthia

If you are interested in math, movement and dance...

 

Hi all! For those interested in the connections between math, movement and dance, you might be
interested in joining in on the monthly meetings of the DMAM group (Dance, Movement Arts and Math). This international group of teachers, researchers and dancers is an offshoot of Bridges Math and Art, and meets one Sunday morning per month online on Zoom. It's headed by Karl Schafer (of the math modern dance company, Dr. Schafer and Mr. Stern). Each session typically has one or two presentations and some lively discussion with really interesting people working with these ideas.

The next DMAM session is this Sunday, December 15 from 10:30 AM - 12:00 noon Vancouver time. (This one is a bit unusual -- they're usually from 10-11:30 AM). 

If you're interested in joining in, please let me know, and I can let Karl know to put you on the mailing list, and send you the Zoom link for Sunday! Hope to see some people there if you're interested!

Some math-y carols to sing

 Here are some silly and fun math-y songs. And surely you and your students could write some too?

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B00n89L6TX5gWGJnaGJxSXFLS2M/edit?usp=docslist_api&filetype=msword&resourcekey=0-L7RHw26ZkRIAujSmX6jKkQ

This Wednesday Dec 11: Our end-of-term math party!

Hello everyone! Winter solstice and our holiday break from classes are coming up — and we have our
*MATH PARTY* this Wednesday Dec. 11! 

Please bring some snacks to share ('mathematical' snacks if possible!) and some math resources, games, movies and fun ideas -- we'll have time to share some of these as part of the festivities!

Looking forward to it, and I'm going to miss you all very much... it's been a wonderful semester with you, and I know you are all excellent, very thoughtful and resourceful new math teachers. You have a great community of colleagues from your classes here, and I hope these friendships will be nourishing to you throughout your careers.

As a final reflection on the course:

*** Please reread all your blog posts from the course, and write a post that reflects on your learning throughout the course, along with highlights and suggestions for the course in future years.

Playing with (binary and other) number bases through poetry, movement, sound and visual arts

 Here are some resources for designing highly interactive math lessons around binary numbers and other

number bases:

Mike Naylor's Hero Run poem (and several other very cool mathematically-structured poems!)

A film from this class a few years ago: 

New math teachers riff on Kandinsky in Binary

...which refers to Marc and Marion Chamberland's 2016 artwork, Kandinsky in Binary -- a beautiful and unique way of representing numbers in different bases with concentric circles.

And a more recent film from Malmö University in Sweden, The Binary Balcony!

Playing with the Etch-A-Sketch to experiment with linear functions, circles and sinusoidal functions

 The Etch-A-Sketch toy has been around since the 1960's, at a time when lots of people were first getting TVs. The TVs of that era had horizontal and vertical hold knobs to stabilize the picture -- so the Etch-A-Sketch has knobs that control the horizontal and vertical movements of an internal mechanical cursor. No electricity required, and the image is erased by shaking the screen (something like sand inside erases the image.) Some people have figured out how to do amazing drawings with this simple drawing tool! We will aim to use it to understand some aspects of algebraic geometry in a more visceral way, with a fun retro toy.

You can access a virtual Etch-A-Sketch here, by the way!

Here are some experiential ways to play with an introduction to linear functions (and then circles and sinusoidal functions) with students working in groups of 3 with an Etch-A-Sketch!

Instructions:

1. Form a group of 3: one person operating the horizontal (H) knob, one the vertical (V) knob, and one person as timekeeper.
   
   
2. Start by playing a bit with drawing on the Etch-A-Sketch. Most people try to draw a house with a slanting roof. Notice how you have to use both the H and V knobs together to get a diagonal line (or anything that's not strictly horizontal or vertical!)
   
   
3. Use a permanent marker to mark a dash as the home position for the H and V knobs, so that you'll be able to tell when you've done a full turn, a half turn, etc.
   
   
4. Now have just one person operate the H knob, and a different person the V knob, and cover the screen with a piece of paper so that you can't see what you are drawing till it is done. You'll need the help of the time keeper to keep a steady beat by clapping or counting or otherwise directing the actions of the H and V people. Try the following:

• (a) Turn the H and V knobs the same distance, in the same direction, at the same rate. What have you drawn? (Take a photo of it, and of each successive drawing).
• (b) Turn the H and V knobs the same distance, in the opposite direction, at the same rate. What have you drawn, and why?
• (c) Turn the V knob two turns for every one turn of the H knob, in the same direction (and then in the opposite direction). What do you predict will be the result, and why? Did the result match your prediction?
• (d) Turn the H knob two turns for every one turn of the V knob, in the same direction (and then in the opposite direction). What do you predict will be the result, and why? Did the result match your prediction?

    5. Let's do some translation from "turn the knob" instructions to linear equations:

• (a) V is the same as H -->
  V = H --->
  ??
• (b) V is equivalent but opposite to H -->  ??
• (c) V is equivalent but twice as much as H --> ??
• (d) H is equivalent but twice as much as V --> ??
  
  Any surprises or revelations? How was it to do this with the screen covered with a piece of paper (as opposed to what it would be like looking at the screen while you draw)? What difference did it make to your mathematical noticing or awareness to have two people separately operate the H and V knobs, rather than doing it all yourself?

And now: CIRCLES!

1. Again with one person on the H and one on the V knobs, the timekeeper coordinating, and a piece of paper covering the screen, think about how you could draw a circle -- and then try doing it several ways! Keep a record of your results with photos, and caption them if you can with the strategy you tried.
   
   What strategies worked best for drawing circles? Was it easy or hard -- and why?
   What does this tell you about what a circle is? Does it shift your sense of the definition of a circle in any way? 
   
   
2. As an interesting extension: Now try drawing a sine (sinusoidal) curve, also with one person per knob, the screen covered with a piece of paper, the timekeeper keeping everyone on track.
   
   What did you notice about what the person on the H knob and V knobs did differently?
   What does this tell you about what a sinusoidal curve is?
   Did it connect with the way you drew a circle in any way?
   Did this experience connect at all with ideas from differential geometry?
   
   Once everyone has tried this, we will share and discuss what we noticed and discovered about these shapes using this fun toy!
   
   
   

Circle geometry, proofs and dynamic geometry explorations with Desmos/ Geogebra

 Here are resources for four guided lessons using free, dynamic geometry software online -- either Desmos or Geogebra. These circle geometry theorems are currently included in the BC Geometry 12 curriculum, though they were in the Math 11 precalculus curriculum for many years. (If your school is not offering Geometry 12, these are some very interesting geometric ideas that could be introduced as an enrichment topic in the senior year classes!)

Overview and lesson one (retyped)
Lesson 1 again (scanned version)
Lesson 2 (scanned)
Lesson 3 (scanned)
Lesson 4 (scanned)
Older textbook deductive proofs (scanned, somewhat blurry)

In the olden days, students used to doing geometry with pencil, compass, straightedge and paper, but from the 1990s on,  many online dynamic (as opposed to static) geometry tools became available. Geometer's Sketchpad, Cabri, Cinderella and many more are listed on a Wikipedia page here.

By far the most popular of these is now Geogebra, as it is free, open-source, and contains many lesson ideas developed by and for teachers. Take some time to look at Geogebra and experiment a bit with it.

Desmos is also taking on many similar functions to Geogebra, and is also free and available to students and teachers. You will likely use Desmos and/or Geogebra with your classes


What are your thoughts on these guided geometry experiences? How do you feel they relate to more formal deductive proofs? Do you feel that these 'prove' the theorems?

In thinking this through, please refer to John Mason's three levels of proofs --
1) Prove it to yourself,
2) Prove it to a friend or ally,
3) Prove it to a sceptic.

Here is an excellent short article by John Mason on this topic, for your reference!

For Taha and Jacob's curricular microteaching Mon Dec 2

Hi all! Here are the criteria for your peer/ self evaluations for Jacob and Taha's curricular microteaching lesson for tomorrow. (Thanks for offering clear and constructive comments as well about what worked and what might be improved -- and thanks to Mark for writing these so beautifully on the whiteboard!)