What are pseudocontexts, and should K-6 math teachers be concerned about them? I came across the term in Dan Meyer's excellent blog, in which he explores better ways of engaging students in learning math, and calls out "fake math" and poor teaching.
How important is it for our kids to grow up being good at math? Try this on for size: in 2016, terrorists are as likely to carry a laptop as a bomb. And they are probably in a basement somewhere, not risking being found out in the open. Want to try that line "We don't really need to be all that good at math, now we all have smartphones" again? I thought not.
The recent national census really caught the attention of the Australian populace, mostly for all the wrong reasons. The official website couldn't cope with the traffic to the site on "census night", which was entirely predictable, and at the same time it was subjected to several "Denial of Service" (DOS) attacks. But apart from that, what can we teach children about censuses? Here are a few ideas:
Do your students believe that math is irrelevant to their lives? Sadly, all too many of them do, especially as they reach high school. The article I discuss this week lists 10 occasions in which major Australian supermarkets got the mathematics behind their special offers totally wrong. Sometimes the “offer” was worse than the standard […]
Starting a mathematics lesson is possibly the most important part, and yet it is often given little thought, and falls into the "Who can tell me what we did yesterday?" pattern. Reinvigorate your math teaching with a creative, attention-grabbing start!
