[NBI] Week four of the Math Blogging Initiation

It’s the final week of the Math Blogging Initiation, and I’ve got 7 awesome bloggers who deserve a huge congratulations for submitting a weekly (or more) blog post for the past month. Congrats to everyone who participated in this outstanding project—the math twitterblogoverse is much richer thanks to your contributions.

Joe B | @forumjoe | lim joe→∞

Joe B (@forumjoe) has a blog named lim joe→∞. The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Everything is Mathematical” and the author sums it up as follows: I provide a link to a new mathematics challenge site, Everything is Mathematical and discuss the content. I post my solution to the first puzzle and improve my Latex skills in the process. A memorable quotation from the post is: I’m really impressed by the way Marcus du Sautoy presents the problem in an easy-to-understand way. There’s no pseudocontext here, there’s no anyqs.

My notes: joe is a Maths Teacher in the UK, who’s actually been sporadically blogging for quite some time (since 2009). He’s recently been developing is chops with LaTeX, and he is uncovering some great resources like Everything is Mathematical that I had not seen before.

Nutter Buttersmith | @reminoodle | The MathSmith

Nutter Buttersmith (@reminoodle) has a blog named The MathSmith. The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Mathemes” and the author sums it up as follows: I had a lot of fun creating these math memes. A memorable quotation from the post is: there were no sentences.

My notes: These are some great math memes, and if you check the archives, you’ll see Nutter is fully plugged into the math twitterblogoverse; she’s posted a Made4Math Monday post on foldables, as well as a number of My Favorite Friday posts, including this post on student math puns.

Christy Wood | @wyldbirman | Hands on Math in High School

Christy Wood (@wyldbirman) has a blog named Hands on Math in High School. The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Beautiful Dance Moves” and the author sums it up as follows: My blog is about the beautiful dance moves I do when I describe functions. I have a picture and descriptions. A memorable quotation from the post is: When I started teaching, I found myself using my arms – and not for writing on the whiteboard.

My Notes: A nice quick tip on helping students to visualize functions through dance. Heck, this technique has even gotten some kids into college (and profiled in the NYT). Christy teaches Algebra, Algebra II and Geometry at a school in Florida.

Jonathan Newman | Hilbert’s Hotel

Jonathan Newman has a blog named Hilbert’s Hotel. The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled Tiered Assessment in Chemistry” and the author sums it up as follows: I used another tiered assessment (stolen from Steve Grossberg) and tried to perfect it. The quiz is on scientific notation and significant figures for my Chemistry class, but is certainly usable in a math class. I will try to post more of my tiered assessment quizzes online as I work out the kinks. A memorable quotation from the post is: And since we get bonus points for embedding a video, here’s one reason it’s fun to be a Chemistry teacher (yes, I celebrate Pi day in my math classes even though I don’t teach Geometry…)

My Notes: Jonathan teaches precalculus, chemistry, physics and general science at Rehoboth high school in New Mexico. I think the idea of tiered quizzing is fairly interesting—students can simply work their way up to the highest level of mastery. He also seems to be dipping his toes into Standards based grading.

Valerie Higgins | Crafty Math

Valerie Higgins @Valerie1121 has a blog named Crafty Math. The fourth post for the Blogging Initiation is titled How big is my classroom?” and the author sums it up as follows: My students worked in groups to calculate the perimeter, area, and volume of my classroom. Then they summarized how they did this in written form. A memorable quotation from the post is: I was tired of the worksheets.

My Notes: OMG OMG OMG: Valerie did the super cool project based on Ana Soler’s incredible artwork where she creates sculptures of tennis balls appearing to bounce through the air, and she wrote a 3-part post about how she did it: part 1, part 2, part 3. I am so going to do this in my classroom.