# What’s in your private math universe?

By Murray Bourne, 11 Jun 2007

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.

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