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Have you used maths in the news in school?
Later this year I am to give a session at a teachers conference on using maths in the news for enriching school maths lessons.
In my session, I intend to go over some recent maths news. I would also like to give some real examples of teachers having used some news in class.
Samuel Hansen and I keep track of mathematics news and mathematics in the news for our podcast. I am aware that people have written in from time to time to say they have used some bit or another in class but I haven’t recorded these instances.
My plea, then, is this: Whether from the podcast or not, please could you send me your examples of how you’ve used current events in mathematics class for enrichment? I’d like to know what the news story was, what you did and how it worked.
You can leave a message in the comments of this post or send me a message various ways that are listed on the contact page of my website.
Thank you!
Three Cubes Colliding by Ivan Morison and Heather Peak
[vimeo url=https://vimeo.com/33342571]
Card trick video from Christian Perfect
A while ago Christian Perfect suggested the monthly local Maths Jam organisers might write up what happens at Maths Jams to their blogs so others can get a feel for what goes on. I regard this as a good idea I haven’t got around to yet.
Luckily, Christian has just made a video showing a card trick we have played with at the Nottingham Maths Jam, so that makes this an easy post!
I was shown this trick by Matt Parker in a hotel bar in Coventry, who refused to say how it works. I went to the Nottingham Maths Jam in November 2011 having worked out how to do the trick but having spent no time at all considering how it might work, saving this for Maths Jam. I showed John Read, Kathryn Taylor and Sharon Evans and together we worked out the details given in Christian’s video.
I made a joke on Twitter based on Gauss’ reaction to Bolyai’s work on non-Euclidean geometry: “Enjoying video by @christianp. However, ‘to praise it would amount to praising myself’ ;)”. Gauss is reported to have written to Bolyai’s father:
To praise [Bolyai’s work] would amount to praising myself. For the entire content of the work … coincides almost exactly with my own meditations which have occupied my mind for the past thirty or thirty-five years.
while privately writing to a friend to say:
I regard this young geometer Bolyai as a genius of the first order.
Of course, by invoking the former I meant to imply the latter. Perhaps a more suitable quote might be that of Kelvin, having first read George Green’s Essay on electricity and magnetism:
I have just met with Green’s memoir, which renders a separate treatise on electricity less necessary… I have, most unwittingly, trodden almost exactly in his steps as far as regards electricity.
I’d say playing around with tricks and working out how they work is a very Maths Jam activity so anyone considering attending one should regard this as very much the sort of thing that happens at a Maths Jam. Find your local one, or set one up!
Newcastle MathsJam December 2011 Recap
Amazingly, December’s MathsJam had a non-trivial attendance of six whole people. And not just any people! Puzzling heavyweight David Cushing had yet more Renaissance-era riddles to test us all, and the other regulars were in similarly bamboozling form.
I balanced things out by failing to prepare anything or bringing anything to take notes on and subsequently forgetting most of what the others talked about. So this isn’t going to be a very accurate record of what happened, unless I get some reminders in the comments.
I’m going to start with a rather lengthy deconstruction of a puzzle Matthew Taylor posed:
A “lights out” puzzle
Matthew posted this puzzle on twitter a couple of days before the MathsJam night.
Click here to continue reading Newcastle MathsJam December 2011 Recap on cp’s mathem-o-blog
300 posts later, who is Peter Rowlett?
This is the 300th post to this blog. At 100 posts and 200 posts I paused for a recap of my current circumstances. This 300th post coincides with the change of calendar year, which seems to bring out a great deal of reflection from people. Nevertheless, I will try not to get too mushy on you!
When I started this blog in February 2008, I had recently begun work as University Liaison Officer for the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, and decided to blog about my travels around the UK talking to university student groups about why they should join the IMA. After 100 posts, in March 2009, I had recently started working alongside the IMA job in e-learning for the School of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Nottingham.
By my 200th post, in June 2010, I had reduced my hours with the IMA to continue to work for Nottingham. My role title at Nottingham had changed from e-learning to Technology Enhanced Learning and a change of emphasis, as I saw it, from being a teaching support person acting through technology to a tech support person who dealt with teaching meant that I was feeling much less well placed. Shortly afterwards, in August 2010, I finished at Nottingham and, extremely sadly, with the IMA to move full-time to the University of Birmingham. There I work on the Mathematical Sciences HE Curriculum Innovation Project for the Maths, Stats and OR (MSOR) Network as part of the National HE STEM Programme.
The National HE STEM Programme is a major higher education intervention seeking to enable HE to engage with schools, enhance curricula, support graduates and develop the workforce. My part is focused around curriculum development in the mathematical sciences. A major part of this work had us running the HE Mathematics Curriculum Summit, an event this time last year that brought together those with an interest in mathematics teaching at university whose priority recommendations we are acting on in a series of curriculum innovation projects this academic year.
What of the future? The National HE STEM Programme is a three-year initiative which finishes on 31st July 2012 and the Higher Education Academy has withdrawn funding for Subject Centres like the MSOR Network, so my job will end with no chance of follow on work. Of course this means I am quite preoccupied with worries about income in the latter half of 2012. I have a strong interest in teaching and would love it if someone would employ me as a mathematics lecturer. I think my CV is strong for curriculum development aspects and schools outreach but many lecturing posts are really about serious mathematics research, while my research is in the curriculum development aspects of teaching, learning, assessment and support. Even for those few that aren’t, the number of candidates applying for jobs now means that, while I have some relevant teaching experience, my lack of mathematics PhD means I am not at the top of the pile. I believe I would make a good lecturer, strongly interested in pedagogy (as it could improve student learning and the student experience, rather than as a philosophical pursuit), and that I would enjoy such a role. I just need to convince someone else of this, or stop barking up this tree and find something else to aspire to do.
Outside of work, I remain registered for a PhD in e-assessment in mathematics, which I must complete by July 2013. I think this is on track as it moves into a final experimental phase.
At 200 posts, I had recently started a weekly mathematics-based conversation with Samuel Hansen of ACME Science. Well, we’ve just published the 79th almost-weekly episode of the Math/Maths Podcast, which was a review of the year 1811 (not wanting to merely rehash 2011). Samuel and I have started a shared blog for writing practice over at Second-Rate Minds. My write-up of my 2010 Maths Jam Conference talk about a simple puzzle and what I think it can reveal about student thinking got a lot of attention and I am pleased with a piece I wrote reflecting on Hardy’s Apology. I have also been editing posts written by Samuel, which has been an illuminating experience.
I no longer work for the IMA but I remain a member (MIMA) and have a volunteer role on the committees for the East Midlands Branch and the Early Career Mathematicians Group. Having been co-opted to Council of the British Society for the History of Mathematics at my 200th post, I have since been elected to Council and continue to serve in this voluntary role. I remain a STEM Ambassador and contributed a mathematics stall to the East Midlands Big Bang STEM Festival.
Puzzlebomb – January 2012
Puzzlebomb is a monthly puzzle compendium. Issue 1 of Puzzlebomb, for January 2012, can be found here:
Puzzlebomb – Issue 1 – January 2012
The solutions to Issue 1 can be found here: