Predicting The Great Pumpkin

Thanks to Doc Running who has organized a Halloween blog hop, you are in for a treat from several great math teachers! I've got a big story for you that I hope you'll share with students, and links to more great resources. Read on!

I always smile when I think about the scene in Big where giant Tom Hanks is coincidentally eating a tiny ear of corn. Partly I smile because it’s great comedy—he approaches the task with a seriousness reminiscent of Chaplin eating his shoe.

But I also like this scene because science! Corn (more precisely, maize) was domesticated

Tricks for Counting Treats

There are lots of treats (including freebies) in this post! Read on...

The leaves are changing color in the Blue Ridge mountains of North Carolina. The surf is picking up at Pacific Beach in San Diego. The elk are tangling in the forests near Jackson Hole but soon the first snow will urge them to warmer plains. Great flocks of warblers are touching down and stirring the glassy waters of the salt marshes of Louisiana. A welcome reef of cloud dulls the Mediterranean sun in Alicante. Autumn.

The Shepherd's Calculation

From the balcony of my new apartment I can see the Mediterranean Sea. This is what it looks like:

I live in Spain, where I’ve taught math at international schools for the past four years. I taught and surfed in southern California for many sunny seasons, and last week I discovered that you can surf in the Mediterranean too! Can you tell which photo below depicts surfing in California and which surfing on the Mediterranean?

GIFS are powerful!

And pretty easy to make! I bought the cheap app Animation HD, for my ipad, then used imgflip free online to create the gif. Way easier than using photoshop in my opinion. It's cool because in less than 30 seconds you get a little introduction to quadratic functions, with automatic review since it loops!

A Snapshot of Interactive, Hands-On Math

What they're working on.

An Introduction To Courage To Core

Introduction
My first year of math teaching was in 1995 at an innovative private high school in San Francisco named Lick-Wilmerding. Students worked in small groups to explore algebra and geometry, reporting their findings in documents written as if they were lab reports. Students would receive direct instruction when necessary, but frequently, questions were explored and answered by members of the groups themselves. I adapted hesitantly to this new structure, as I myself had been taught by teachers and professors using lecture combined with extensive homework practice. Over my subsequent years of teaching in the states I explored a range of methods tailored to the various cultures of the schools at which I taught. This included straight lecture and homework, a mixture of lecture and independent class work, and collaborative group work supported by a textbook. Over the last 8 years of teaching at La Jolla Country Day in San Diego and two international schools in Spain, the American School of Valencia and the American School of Madrid, I’ve developed Courage To Core which allows my ninth and tenth grade math students to explore mathematical concepts as if exploring scientific concepts in laboratories.