MariaDroujkova
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Homepage: http://www.naturalmath.com
Posts by MariaDroujkova
Good calculation games
February 4, 2012 - 9:17 am
Tags: game mechanics, games
Posted in Life notes | 2 comments
Here are games that work well with arithmetic tasks. By “work well” I mean: Mechanics provide players enough agency and freedom to develop tactics, so that the overall activity is still a game (rather than a quiz) Mechanics produce strong, pleasant flow, as evidenced by popularity The overall feeling of the game is vaguely mathematical [...]
Long-term solution to school discipline
February 3, 2012 - 8:32 am
Tags: dreams, homeschool
Posted in Life notes, The Now | No comments
I think the only long-term solution to child discline is to raise the adult:child ratio to about 1:5 or more, in all situations. Humans are, among other things, group animals with powerful instincts dictating behavior. Any situation where there are too many kids will instinctively feel threatening to kids, on the ancient basis of being [...]
Math presentations at Connecting Online 2012 February 3 and 4
February 1, 2012 - 5:56 pm
Tags: conference, Math 2.0
Posted in Life notes | No comments
There are forty-five fine presentations at this weekend’s web conference, CO12: http://www.wiziq.com/events/co12.htm In particular, check out these four presentations from Math Future people: Friday, February 3 1pm ET Math game development, by Maria Droujkova http://www.wiziq.com/online-class/701943-math-game-development-communities-and-networks Mathematics educators need to create excellent learning games, which is a hard enough task. But even more challenging is the [...]
Sign up for the open online course “Developing mathematics: The early years”
January 18, 2012 - 8:51 am
Tags: Math 2.0, MOOC
Posted in Life notes | 2 comments
I am leading a MOOC (massive open online course) this Spring. The sign-up is open January 17-22 at P2PU School of Math Future: http://p2pu.org/en/groups/ed218-developing-mathematics-the-early-years/ The course is offered for credit to Arcadia University students, and for School of Math Future completion certificate to everybody. It has the following overarching themes: – Personally meaningful and relevant [...]
The degrees of creativity in math
December 27, 2011 - 1:07 pm
Posted in Life notes | No comments
This is a list from Charles Fadel‘s presentation at this year’s Computer-Based Math Education Summit in London. It can easily be adapted to activities other than problem-solving: Solve an exercise Solve a problem Solve a class of problems Use non-standard solutions Create new problems Create new classes of problems, with their solutions I am eager [...]
Multiplication as (not?) repeated addition… in ancient Egypt
December 16, 2011 - 8:04 pm
Posted in Multiplication | No comments
Milo Gardner wrote something I just want to quote as a holistic take on a modern hot topic: a dual definition of multiplication. This comes from a thread in “Math, Math Education, Math Culture” on LinkedIn. Modern mathematics including paper folding offers distractions from the central dual multiplication definition conflict. Multiplication defined as been repeated [...]
Virtual constructions and physical constructions
December 9, 2011 - 10:04 am
Tags: Math 2.0
Posted in Life notes | No comments
In a Math 2.0 email group conversation about screencasting and tools like vZome, Brad Hansen-Smith of WholeMovement posed this question: Can you explain how using this virtual zome tool will give students a better understanding of polyhedra than actually building it from scratch for themselves? I have the same question about any virtual experience when [...]
A few of my favorite visualizations
December 1, 2011 - 8:52 am
Posted in Life notes | No comments
This is for the Oceans homeschool coop meeting we are having today. Make your own Many Eyes Fractions Fractions are easy visually (not in other representations), so they are a frequent target: From xkcd From OccupyGeorge.com Timelines There are two main reasons people may want to visualize timelines. First, something like this is too [...]
Math idioms
November 21, 2011 - 6:41 am
Tags: curriculum development
Posted in Life notes | 2 comments
This comes from the Math Future email list discussion: http://groups.google.com/group/mathfuture/browse_thread/thread/71711320007c2f47/67e4e32417b09153 Algot Runeman linked this article: http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/11/02/the-way-we-teach-math-and-language-is-wrong/ I said that the phrase that learning must be idiomatic caught my eye. And Sue Hellman responded: I decided to take a look at the article referenced in tkosan’s response to Linda’s question (link– http://206.21.94.61/misc/permalink/procedural_vs_functional.html). I think ‘math idioms’ might be [...]
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