It is surprising how life loops around returning to similar, perhaps familiar would be a more appropriate word, ideas. My first foray into developing curriculum using technology started in 1968 at a company called Ealing in their Film Loop division as their physical science and math editor. I was to teach single concepts, as we …
Empathy is an odd idea to discuss in math or even in STEM/STEAM education. It is usually thought of as an issue in psychology or sociology, perhaps in the humanities, a topic for English or history classes to consider in school. Yet, it is the first step in the Design Learning process where Stanford’s D …
Welcome to the first of our new Explorations. Joining the work of What if Math and Education Resources Consortium (ERC), Explorations provide students with a comprehensive learning experience with fascinating questions, interesting places to go, and powerful tools to use to solve problems. Our first Exploration is Sand and Stars where students can discover an …
G.H. Hardy, one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century wrote this: A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. The mathematician’s patterns, like the painter’s or the poet’s must be beautiful; the ideas like the colours or the words, must fit together in a harmonious way. Beauty is the …
I still feel it months later, the thrill and awe I knew from finding an answer to a question I have long been troubled by. I was reading a delightful book on physics by Richard Muller called, Now, in which mixing physics and history, he explained time and in that process, physics as well. I …
Or how to build an atomic bomb. One of the best curriculum ideas I ever had was to use this book as the text for an intro to physics course. It was written in 1942/3 by Robert Serber who had been tasked by Robert Oppenheimer to teach a course to newly arrived scientists and technicians …
Today, I attended an ancient ceremony. It is called “Hooding”. An elaborate and beautiful hood is given to students who have completed their scholarship and are ready to receive a doctoral degree. The Hooding Ceremony at Lesley University today with its rich pageant and sweet music took me back to the 12th and 13th centuries …
One hundred years ago my father at age 9 entered America. He had traveled from his birthplace in a town in what is now Ukraine across the vast expanse of Siberia on the Trans-Siberian railroad to its eastern extreme at Vladivostok, from there by ship to Kyoto, Japan and then 6 weeks on a tramp …
The University of Chicago is not known for its athletics, so when I entered it as a first-year student I was very surprised that I had to take and pass a swimming test. Despite my parent’s best efforts, I had never learned to swim, and thus had to take a required quarter of swimming classes. …
Over the past year, we have been working to combine our spreadsheet math lessons (downloaded more than 20,000 times) into digital age problem solving Courses that promote readiness for school transitions and prepare students for STEM careers. We developed a new model for creatively solving digital age problems that we call Functional Thinking. And we …
