One of the aspects I like best about Dynamic Geometry software like Web Sketchpad is its ability to illustrate concepts that cannot effectively be represented with static media. Take, for example, a number line that we draw on a white board. Showing the number … Continue Reading ››
With Web Sketchpad, it's easy to craft tools that are tailor made for the task at hand. I was reminded of this flexibility several weeks ago when creating an interactive model for the elementary curriculum Everyday Mathematics.
My goal was to design a lesson focusing on the triangle area formula, A … Continue Reading ››
In my prior posts ( When Factoring Gets Personal, Open the Safe, and Reasoning with Multiples to Find the Mystery Number), I’ve given examples of how learning about multiples and factors … Continue Reading ››
The origins of this week's Web Sketchpad model date back to the Connected Geometry curriculum from the mid 1990s. I was one of the co-authors of the curriculum, working at Education Development Center with a wonderful team of math educators (Al Cuoco, … Continue Reading ››
This Thursday, Scott Steketee and I will be presenting two sessions at the NCTM 2015 Annual Meting in Boston:
Functions as Dances: Experience Variation and Relative Rate of Change
Session 52 on Thursday, April 16, 2015: 8:00 AM-9:15 AM in 157 B/C (BCEC)
How better to explore rate of change than as independent and … Continue Reading ››
Simultaneous equations belong in elementary-school mathematics curricula. That's been my mantra for many years, and I want to examine it now in the context of an interactive Web Sketchpad activity.
When I say that elementary-age students should encounter simultaneous equations, I don't mean that they should be instructed in the standard algebraic procedure for solving pairs of equations … Continue Reading ››
For this year’s Pi Day post, I thought I’d continue our Web Sketchpad (WSP) construction theme. But rather than adapting the visualizations from last year’s Pi Day post to the new construction capabilities, I decided to take a different approach. Some time ago, I built a set of custom tools … Continue Reading ››
Dan Meyer has posted a number of "What Can You Do With This?" activities on his blog. (Activities is probably too prescriptive a word; they're more in the nature of prompts for student thinking, noticing, and wondering.) One of the first was the image below, which he made by superimposing frames from a … Continue Reading ››