The good thing about teaching percents is that they connect to the real world, particularly with money. The bad thing is, it can be hard to find really dynamic problems. Too [...]
One of the beautiful results in mathematics is the proof of the divergence of the harmonic series. What it tells us is that the infinite series of fractions 1/2 + 1/3 + 1/4 + 1/5 + 1/6 + … gets infinitely large. Recently, I got to [...]
The grails of math activities, for me, are those that involve almost no special knowledge to get into, but have near-infinite depth. (Like this one.) We sometimes describe them as having a short barrier to entry, and no ceiling. (A common [...]
I’ve been immersed in puzzle and lesson creation lately, and I thought I should take advantage and throw some of them out here on the blog. Please take, solve, use in your [...]
I just read this wonderful interview with Tom Zhang, who made recent, important progress on the Twin Prime conjecture. It’s a strange, quiet interview, and a lovely departure from the world of the fame-obsessed. Another thing I like: he [...]
I was just observing a third grade class learning/reviewing basic fraction to decimal conversion, and I overheard a great remark. A girl, reading a word problem, said to her table [...]
Reading an Alfie Kohn’s article on what kids learn from failure made me think of the most common question I hear from teachers about the Common Core Practices: “How can I [...]
Those who believe the Common Core Standards are a good thing should take notice. The next year or two will probably make or break them, and the criticism is already starting to mount. This matters. Reforms only work when the people who [...]
When I try to describe great teaching, I notice a certain phrase pops out of my mouth again and again. Productively stuck. As in, the goal of the teacher is to get her students productively stuck as soon as possible. As in, we want to hook [...]
It’s happened to every teacher. It’s Thursday, but your students don’t seem to remember Wednesday or Tuesday, and you’ve got three times as much material to cover if there’s any chance of Friday’s lesson working. Finally, you [...]
When Stephen Colbert introduced the word truthiness on his show, he told us to trust our guts. That’s where the truth comes from, ladies and gentlemen: in the gut. Do you know [...]
I recently posted this interesting inversion problem: The question is this: in mod n, how many functions f(x)= ax +b are their own inverses? For example, the function f(x) = 5x + 2, applied twice in mod 12, is equal to the identity. It’s [...]
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