Skip to main content
Search IntMath
Close

What’s in your private math universe?

By Murray Bourne, 11 Jun 2007

From Learner.org: Private Universe Project in Mathematics (requires free account).

There are some interesting videos in this project showing how students grapple with mathematical concepts.

Research shows that children formulate extraordinarily interesting and complex mathematical ideas, even at a very young age. The Private Universe Project in Mathematics demonstrates and honors the power and sophistication of these ideas, and explores how mathematics teaching can be structured to resonate with children's sophisticated thinking.

I enjoyed the one on calculus, since they are starting with a practical problem - before the students ever see a differentiation:

Workshop 6. Possibilities of Real-Life Problems Students come up with a surprising array of strategies and representations to build their understanding of a real-life calculus problem - before they have ever taken calculus.

This is the same series as A Private Universe, that I wrote about before.

Well worth a look.

Be the first to comment below.

Leave a comment




Comment Preview

HTML: You can use simple tags like <b>, <a href="...">, etc.

To enter math, you can can either:

  1. Use simple calculator-like input in the following format (surround your math in backticks, or qq on tablet or phone):
    `a^2 = sqrt(b^2 + c^2)`
    (See more on ASCIIMath syntax); or
  2. Use simple LaTeX in the following format. Surround your math with \( and \).
    \( \int g dx = \sqrt{\frac{a}{b}} \)
    (This is standard simple LaTeX.)

NOTE: You can mix both types of math entry in your comment.

top

Tips, tricks, lessons, and tutoring to help reduce test anxiety and move to the top of the class.