hands on math

Meet the First Woman to Win Math’s Most Prestigious Prize, Maryam Mirzakhani, doodles to gain a sense of things as her theorems progress, and there is an interesting sidebar to the article explaining that if mirrors are set up on every surface upon which a billiards ball will strike, it will be seen to follow a straight line. At Clear Spring School we've always used hands-on means of learning math, and have used the wood shop as a means to both learn math and apply it, but we are really trying to lift our student performance to a higher level.

So one of the things we are investigating is called "Math-U-See. We had a demonstration of it yesterday via Skype, and found it appealing as it will allow integration between grade levels from K through high school, and without the kind of stigma attached as to whether or not a student is performing at this or that particular grade level. It can be rather boring to watch videos, but we were able to have a set of math-u-see blocks on hand to see, hold and manipulate during the lesson, and we all know that helps. Effective teaching uses as much of the brain as possible, and in order to do, uses as many of the senses as can possibly be engaged in the process.



In my own wood shop yesterday, I finally applied finish to the demonstration boxes I made to weeks ago at Marc Adams School of Woodworking.



Make, fix and create...