Creativity and mathematics with Mr. Honner

By Anna Dobos: Creativity and mathematics with Mr. Honner

 

Where is the creativity in Math? I like to learn interesting “stuff” in Math from professionals such as Patrick Honner. I`m always happy to see educators sharing the same philosophy as I believe in. My philosophy has a lot to do with CREATIVITY, so I very much connect with a philosophy of a great mathematician at Brooklyn Technical High School, New York, Patric Honner.  

A primary objective of Mr.Honner.com is to exhibit the math all around us in order to stimulate question-posing and hypothesizing. Would you agree that these are the first steps in structuring a good mathematical investigation?

Mr. Honner is a finalist for the 2014 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching (PAEMST). Mr. Honner is a three-time recipient of Math For America‘s Master Teacher Fellowship, and an active in MfA’s professional community. He spoke at the 2012 TEDxNYED conference about creativity and mathematics. I would recommend you to see the short video of his presentation on the TED website. 

Can you imagine a teacher walking around with a camera? I can. I like that he is also a photographer, who can take pictures of “Math in real life”, you know what I mean. Math is everywhere around us and students should be taught to find it, recognize it, see it, use it, and play with it. Would you agree that we need to make Math more visible? How do you teach your students to see Math around us and make Math more apparent? 

Simple example right here, just look at this photograph showing a view of a city through a rectangular netting. 

Can you think of projecting three-dimensional space onto a two-dimensional coordinate system? 
You can see more pieces from Mr. Honner`s collection of mathematical photography here.
 

 

Electronic Flash Cards

I have recently discovered Anki. It is a program that allows you to make flash cards quickly and easily. You can download the program here. You can also watch this video to get you started:

With Anki you could set up test reviews or trivia-type games with the material your covering in class. You could also use it as a diagnostic tool to determine if your students are ready to move on to new material or if you need to spend more time on the current unit. If you can get the program put onto your school computers you could also have your student create the cards, challenge each other, or help each other study for the upcoming test.

Mike

Ted Talk - Dan Meyers

Here is an excellent Ted Talk about how our Math curriculum is failing our students

He talks about how we, as teachers, expect students to conform to certain expectations and how we reward them for plugging answers into a specific equation.

Dan Meyers does an excellent job of giving an example of a typical Math problem. He breaks it down into different pieces to create discussion and debate among classmates. He brings in videos that allow for questions to be created and discussed and problems to be analyzed.

It is definitely worth your 15 minutes!
Check it out and let me know what you think :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWUFjb8w9Ps

Math for Everyday - Fall 2014

I wanted to post this thought out there to create some discussion and debate.

We are continuously hearing reports about how our students are "failing" when it comes to numeracy and math all over our country. Is it that our kids aren't meeting the standards, or is it that our curriculum isn't meeting the standards of today's kids.

It seems that many students stop taking Math for one simple reason, it scares them.

Student's are so used to being assessed in their numeracy and literacy skills and ranked or compared to their similar aged counter parts; that the interest in Math has seemly decreased.

Today's student has everything at their finger tips, even if they aren't sure how to graph the quadratic equation, they can find a video on youtube or even come up with the correct answer through another blog post or even google's own graphing calculator.

What are these kids really learning? What is learning without understanding?

A great deal of our students do not go on to University or College and pursue degrees in Business or Finance; why are we forcing them through a curriculum in high school that is only catering to a select few individuals.

I find that many students are lacking basic everyday Math skills.

Students need to understand Math and all other aspects of Math that come with living in the real world. Many kids don't know anything about interest rates and loans or mortgages. Or even how to calculate percentages or ratios. Something as simple as multiplication and addition skills have gone by the wayside with the invention of the smartphone.

The smartphone can be useful to obtain a great deal of knowledge, but what the smartphone cannot do is provide problem solving and reasoning skills.

I know there isn't really a direct focus to my blog post, but does anyone have any insights that they would like to share?