Hi all,
Life is getting away from me with some tough personal stuff. So I haven’t been as active with the online math teacher community/twitter/blogging/etc. for a while, and I sadly probably I won’t be for a while.
That being said, I really wish I could participate in this initiative that Raj Shah (no relation!) shared with me a while ago. But because of life stuff I might not be able to. But one of the biggest things I want to do is bring joy into the math classroom as a core value, and this does that. And I love the idea of a collective joyful math moment for students and teachers all around the world! I’ve done a bit of exploration with this initiative — exploding dots — and I think it’s fabulous and full of wonderment. What it takes? At minimum, 15 minutes of classtime! I highly recommend you reading the guest post I asked Raj to write (below), and joining in this worldwide effort to celebrate the interestingness of mathematics!
Always,
Sam
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The Global Math Project is an invitation to students, teachers, and communities everywhere to actively foster their sense of wonder and to enjoy truly uplifting mathematics. Math is a human endeavor: It’s about thinking creatively, exploring patterns, explaining structure, and solving real problems. The Global Math Project will share a unifying, joyful experience of mathematics with people all across the world.
Our aim is to thrill 1 million students, teachers, and adults with an engaging piece of mathematics and to initiate a fundamental paradigm shift in how the world perceives and enjoys mathematics during one special week each year. We are calling it Global Math Week.
This year, Global Math Week will be held from October 10–17. The focus of Global Math Week 2017 is the story of Exploding Dots™ which was developed by Global Math Project founding team member James Tanton, Ph.D.
Exploding Dots is an “astounding mathematical story that starts at the very beginning of mathematics — it assumes nothing — and swiftly takes you on a wondrous journey through grade school arithmetic, polynomial algebra, and infinite sums to unsolved problems baffling mathematicians to this day.”
The Exploding Dots story will work in any classroom, with a variety of learning styles. It’s an easy to understand mathematical model that brings context and understanding to a wide array of mathematical concepts from K-12 including:
- place value
- standard algorithms for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and long division
- integers
- algebra
- polynomial division
- infinite sums
- and more!
Teachers routinely call Exploding Dots “mind-blowing”!
“I am still amazed by this. Exploding Dots has changed my fifth grade class forever!” – Jo Anna F.
“This makes me WANT to teach algebra!” – Kristin K.
“YES!” Hands up in the air in triumph! Decades of believing I couldn’t do math—poof! Exploded!” – Jennifer P.
Join us for Global Math Week, October 10 – 17, 2017!
During Global Math Week, teachers and other math leaders are asked to commit to spending from 15-minutes to one class period on Exploding Dots and to share their students’ experience with the Global Math Project community through social media.
You can join the movement in four easy steps:
1) See Exploding Dots for yourself
Here’s a brief overview: https://youtu.be/KWJVAjONqJM
The complete story: http://www.gdaymath.com/courses/explodingdots
2) Register to Participate at globalmathproject.org
3) Conduct an introductory Exploding Dots experience with your students during Global Math Week
All videos, lesson guides, handouts are available for free at globalmathproject.org. Since everything is available online, inspired students (and teachers) can continue to explore on their own.
4) Share your experience on Twitter during Global Math Week using #gmw2017
That’s it!
The power of the global math education community is truly astounding. To date, over 4,000 teachers have registered to participate in Global Math Week (#gmw2017) and they have pledged to share Exploding Dots with over 560,000 kids from over 100 countries! We already over half-way to our goal
Help us reach and thrill a one million students!
The Global Math Project is a collaboration among math professionals from around the world. Spearheaded by popular speaker, author, and mathematician James Tanton, partner organizations include the American Institute of Mathematics, GDayMath.com, Math Plus Academy, and the National Museum of Mathematics.
Continuous Everywhere but Differentiable Nowhere 