Math Studio meets on Fridays during game time. Stop by
as often as you like to fold origami polyhedra, build polyhedra from
plastic Polydrons, build electric circuits, play math games, and
learn about logic using integrated circuits.
Play the part of a family of barn owls and determine how many voles
you can eat without destroying your food supply. Based on actual
hunting rates, we will use our model to estimate the number of voles
needed to support a barn owl family.
What is the best place to stand in order to make a painting or photo
look three dimensional? Learn secrets of perspective drawing that
revolutionized painting during the Renaissance.
Build your own abacus. Then travel back in time and around the world
to encounter different ways that people have represented and
calculated with numbers.
We have all heard that trees help to clean the air and cool the
Earth, but how much difference does one tree make? In this workshop
for teachers, we present an activity for 5th through 8th grade
students that enables them to ``weigh'' a tree to estimate how much
it cools our planet.
Be logical! Use LED lights, logic gates, and other electronic
components to experience the true meaning of the words AND, OR, NOT,
and other logical connectors.
The candy sharing game has a simple rule for passing candy around
the circle. We will experiment to figure out how to make the game
stop, end in a steady state, or end in a cycle depending on the amount
of starting candy, the number of people playing, and the initial
distribution of candy.
We distributed information about math learning
resources available to IUSB students and taught
participants to fold Sonobe polyhedra and Magic
Pinwheels.
3rd through 6th grade students at the Sample
Street Boys and Girls Club stop by the Math Studio
table in the games room to try hands-on math
activities. During the fall semester, our weekly
sessions involve activities relating to our theme
of geometric designs. After learning basics
about functions, graphing, and imaginary
numbers, students use computers to generate
and explore colorful fractal designs.
Working in partnership with the Adult Education
Department at the South Bend Community School
Corporation, we are exploring innovative new
ways to improve math instruction in GED classes.
Math Circle is for students with long attention
spans who enjoy tackling interesting questions.
Students learn to collaborate with others while
developing and defending their mathematical
ideas.
During this teacher workshop, we try four math
activities that build number sense and problem
solving skills in kindergarten through fourth grade
students.
During a PHM Middle School math teacher
meeting, Amanda summarized her research in
mathematical neuroscience, presented a counting
game, and shared information about math and
science resources available in our community.
5th grade students in Navarre Intermediate
School's LEAP program work in small groups with
assistance from teachers as we explore various
math topics. Each topic is developed over a
period of a month during our weekly meetings.
During this hour-long interactive presentation,
upper elementary school students learn what a
mathematician does. Students learn about
research in mathematical neuroscience and
visually tour several areas of math including braid
arithmetic, cryptology, movie animation, origami,
and Chladni patterns. Finally, students work as
mathematicians creating conjectures and proving
theorems relating to a simple counting game.
During this teacher workshop, we try three math
activities that build number sense and problem
solving skills in kindergarten through fourth grade
students.
Dr. Julianne Turner, a Psychology Professor at
Notre Dame, is in the third year of a research
project that helps middle school math teachers to
apply the principles of motivation theory and best
practices in math education. We are attending
two of the after-school sessions this fall to
observe and to help answer math questions when
they arise.
This workshop involves teachers in a series of
hands-on activities relating to polygons and
polyhedra. Activities are designed to be used as
enrichment in classrooms and in the after-school
program. The approach we present reinforces
basic geometry terminology and concepts, builds
algebraic thinking and pattern finding, and draws
students in through exciting and colorful projects.
During this teacher workshop, we discussed efforts by Lincoln teachers to teach math more conceptually. We also designed lessons that incorporate books from the school library. We also talked about incorporating writing and motivation theory principals in math classes.
