Experimental PD on Logarithms

 

An informal, experimental, purely email Professional Development experience is underway!

Following the methodology of Beagle Learning (see this blog post), a group of daring math souls and I are trying an open PD experience on the topic of

LOGARITHMS: What are they really? What are they good for? And why do we have students study them?

Here’s how it works:

* I started by posting a first question and a piece of content that attended to that question.

* Folk read that content, mulled on that content, and sent me their natural next questions that arose from their mulling.

*  I collated all the questions that came in, identified the top two or three concerns that arose, and created and shared new content attending to those questions.

* And we are repeating this exercise every ten days.

We are thus building an organic, very human, “mind map” of the experience, one that fully and genuinely lays out the mathematics, the context, the human history, and the teaching of logarithms.

It is not too late to join in on the fun. If you are interested, email me (tanton.math@gmail.com).

WHAT HAS HAPPENED SO FAR:

LOGARITHMS: Starting Question and Content (Four large-print, lots-of-white-space, quick-to-scan pages.)

Logarithms Experimental PD_ Questions Asked

The Log Map on May 10

The Log Map _May 20


 

  • ON-LINE SHORT COURSES!

    QUADRATICS, Permutations and Combinations, EXPLODING DOTS, and more!

    Written for educators - and their students too! - this website, slowly growing, takes all the content Tanton has developed in his books, videos, and workshops, and organizes it into short, self-contained, and complete, curriculum units proving that mathematics, at all points of the school curriculum, can be joyous, fresh, innovative, rich, deep-thinking, and devoid of any rote doing! Let's teach generations of students to be self-reliant thinkers, willing to flail and to use their common sense to "nut their way" through challenges, to assess and judge results, and to adjust actions to find success. (Great life skills!)

    CHECK OUT: www.gdaymath.com

  • Books

  • Get in touch