This Week at Global Math

Included this week: This week's Global Math webinar details and some quality blogging action, now with extra nerdsniping! This week's newsletter edited by Ashli Black.

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This Week at Global Math

Join presenter Elizabeth Self for the next GMD on What It Means to "See" Your Students: Responding to the Needs of Diverse Youth.

The deets: Teachers often do harm to their relationships with students when they fail to see them not only as individuals but also as members of cultural groups that have been marginalized in U.S. society. In order to heal these relationships, teachers must let go of “culture blindness” and learn to see with a “cultural eye.” In the first half of this session, I will share my current research on clinical simulations and how simulations can be used to develop cultural competence among both pre- and in-service teachers. I will walk teachers through one such simulation in order to better understand the potential dangers of “culture blindness.” In the second half of the session, I will work to help mathematics teachers think about what they can do in their own classrooms to better “see” their students in ways that support mathematics outcomes as well as healthy identity development.

Register to attend here here.

Last week (Tuesday, March 2nd, 9 PM EDT) Dr. Crystal Hill Morton presented on Challenging Minds: Enhancing mathematical learning of African American students through games.

View the recording here.

Good Reads, a Game, and some Folding Action

In 5 Unfortunate Misunderstandings That Almost All Educators Have About Bloom’s Taxonomy, Grant Wiggins addresses what most educators believe about Bloom’s Taxonomy and then clarifies those mistaken views. The five misunderstandings are:

The first two or three levels of the Taxonomy involve “lower-order” and the last three or four levels involve “higher-order” thinking.
“Application” requires hands-on learning.
All the verbs listed under each level of the Taxonomy are more or less equal; they are synonyms for the level.
The Taxonomy recommends against the goal of “understanding” in education.
The writers of the Taxonomy were confident that the Taxonomy was a valid and complete Taxonomy.

Want to clarify your own understanding of Bloom’s? No Spoilers! Read Grant Wiggin’s blog post!

Robert Kaplinsky, who spearheaded the application of Webb’s DOK in a problem solving web project called Open Middle, has written a blog post explaining the importance of this application. In Why Depth of Knowledge is Critical to Implement, Kaplinsky illustrates through writing and videos how to use Webb’s DOK as an assessment of truly authentic mathematical proficiency in our students. Kaplinsky writes, “Again, another student who appeared to demonstrate “deep, authentic command of mathematical concepts” wasn’t able to show it when a slightly different problem was given to him. What do we make of all of this? What exactly is causing this and where do we go from here?” To find out you have to read Robert Kaplinsky’s blog post.

written by Andrew Gael @bkdidact

Do you teach critical thinking? geometry? perseverance? angles? rotations? reflections? lines? problem-solving?

If yes, read on.

If not, read on too.

I stumbled across this game/app simply titled Okay? You can get it from iTunes.

It made me think of Fawn Nguyen’s When I Let Them Own the Problem and Dan Meyer’s session Video Games & Making Math More Like Things Students Like.

Imagine what you could do in your class with screenshots from this game. Have kids predict the best path of the ball using any math tools imaginable (digital or non-digital). Enjoy.

P.S. Check out the twitter thread and you’ll see math teacher ADDICTION!

Written by Andrew Stadel @mr_stadel

For me origami lives in the delightful intersection of Art and Mathematics, which is one of my favorite places. Last week Plus, an online magazine aimed at "introducing readers to the beauty and the practical applications of mathematics", published an article on Folding Fractions that I think is a great read on the connections between paper folding, geometry, algebra and how to fold any unit fraction (yes, any). If you've never had the chance to explore some of the mathematics around paper folding, definitely check this out and if you do some folding and find yourself wanting to learn more, click over to this video by Numberphile on using origami to trisect an angle.

Written by Ashli Black @mythagon

Recommended Clicking:

It's a flock of synchronized dancing origami cranes on a electromagnetic stage.

If that title doesn't make you click to see the video, you might be dead inside. I highly recommend having sound on as well as the little tucka-tucka noise of the feet adds to the amusement.

If you just want to know how to make the crane with legs, check out this video. It's in Japanese, but if you've ever folded a crane before it's pretty straightforward as the "legs" are from cutting the "tail" of the crane in half and then folding some knees. A million internet points to anyone that gets students to make one of these for a project.

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