Math Movement

Suppose you are at a Major League Baseball game and your friend is looking through binoculars for celebrities. Suddenly, your friend turns and comments, “Did you know that the average person at this game is a millionaire?” How would you respond? Who did your friend see in the stands? Turns out if Bill Gates, as […]

This fall, I’ve been leading a seminar for the Charlotte Teachers Institute entitled, Math through Popular Culture. This Thursday will be our last session together. We will lead a Celebration of Mind event co-hosted by CTI, the Bernard Society of Mathematics at Davidson College, UNCC Math Department, the Charlotte Teachers Circle, and HHMI Outreach at […]

Yesterday, I recorded my first webinar. The process was much simplier than I anticipated. The results? Take a look for yourself and see what you think! The webinar is based on my previous blog posting on using the topic of polynomials as studied in many secondary algebra classrooms to play Angry Birds. Just click the […]

They’re a phenomenon! They’re addictive. They’re angry…really, angry! But, they’ll be happier when they see how math can help them. Yes, we’re going to use ideas often introduced in algebra, specifically polynomials, to help those Angry Birds take out their aggression on the sneaky pigs. Much of angry birds comes down to choosing the angle […]

Did you know that math helped pick your clothes today? Indeed, you dressed up with math! One particular way this is true relates to the clothes you buy in a store. Your choices are constrained by the selections in the store. To get a sense of what is “popular,” opinion groups rate products via surveys […]

Last Sunday, the Carolina Panthers narrowly lost to the New Orleans Saints 27-30 in week 5 of the 2011 NFL season. From the score, Cam Newton appears to have led the Panthers to 3 touchdowns and 2 field goals. The score gives a sense of how the game unfolded that afternoon in Charlotte. Or does […]

How can a kiss help us learn Calculus? If you sit and reflect on answers to this question, you are likely to journey down a mental road different than the one we will traverse. We will indeed use a kiss to motivate a central idea of Calculus, but it will be a Hershey kiss! In […]

Tomorrow, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 opens around the country. It is also the day I return to Charlotte from the Yale National Initiative’s Intensive Session. In honor of a successful week at Yale and what will undoubtedly be a successful opening day for a movie, this blog entry is inspired […]

I compose this blog while stretched out on a dorm bed at Yale University. I’m midway through my time at the Yale National Initiative’s Intensive Session as a College Faculty Member given my involvement with the Charlotte Teachers Institute. My time has been inspiring and thought-provoking. Today, I visited the seminar Great Ideas of Primary […]