A brilliant tour of mathematical thought and a guide to becoming a better thinker, How Not to Be Wrong shows that math is not just a long list of rules to be learned and carried out by rote. Math touches everything we do; It's what makes the world make sense. Using the mathematician's methods and hard-won insights-minus the jargon-professor and popular columnist Jordan Ellenberg guides general readers through his ideas with rigor and lively irreverence, infusing everything from election results to baseball to the existence of God and the psychology of slime molds with a heightened sense of clarity and wonder. Armed with the tools of mathematics, we can see the hidden structures beneath the messy and chaotic surface of our daily lives. How Not to Be Wrong shows us how--Publisher's description.
A thinking student is an engaged student Teachers often find it difficult to implement lessons that help students go beyond rote memorization and repetitive calculations. In fact, institutional norms and habits that permeate all classrooms can actually be enabling "non-thinking" student behavior. Sparked by observing teachers struggle to implement rich mathematics tasks to engage students in deep thinking, Peter Liljedahl has translated his 15 years of research into this practical guide on how to move toward a thinking classroom. Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics, Grades K–12 helps teachers implement 14 optimal practices for thinking that create an ideal setting for deep mathematics learning to occur. This guide Provides the what, why, and how of each practice and answers teachers’ most frequently asked questions Includes firsthand accounts of how these practices foster thinking through teacher and student interviews and student work samples Offers a plethora of macro moves, micro moves, and rich tasks to get started Organizes the 14 practices into four toolkits that can be implemented in order and built on throughout the year When combined, these unique research-based practices create the optimal conditions for learner-centered, student-owned deep mathematical thinking and learning, and have the power to transform mathematics classrooms like never before.
Looking for a head start in your undergraduate degree in mathematics? Maybe you've already started your degree and feel bewildered by the subject you previously loved? Don't panic! This friendly companion will ease your transition to real mathematical thinking. Working through the book you will develop an arsenal of techniques to help you unlock the meaning of definitions, theorems and proofs, solve problems, and write mathematics effectively. All the major methods of proof - direct method, cases, induction, contradiction and contrapositive - are featured. Concrete examples are used throughout, and you'll get plenty of practice on topics common to many courses such as divisors, Euclidean algorithms, modular arithmetic, equivalence relations, and injectivity and surjectivity of functions. The material has been tested by real students over many years so all the essentials are covered. With over 300 exercises to help you test your progress, you'll soon learn how to think like a mathematician.
Use the powerful strategies of play and storytelling to help young children develop their "math brains." This easy-to-use resource includes fun activities, routines, and games inspired by children's books that challenge children to recognize and think more logically about the math all around them.
Blue's Clues is the preferred viewing choice in homes with cable. Add to that the 1998 honor of having the: -- #1 children's book series; -- #1 licensed educational software; -- #1 licensed board game; ... and you can understand why Blue is one of kids' favorites. From the creators of Blue's Clues and American Education Publishing comes a line of books both fun and educational. Each book features: -- Helpful hints for parents -- Answer key -- Learning extension activities -- Interview with topic professional
Thinking Kids'(R) Math is a fun and hands-on approach to learning math! Increase your kindergartenerÕs critical thinking and problem solving skills with the colorful, interactive activities. Each activity supports early learning standards and uses a variety of manipulatives to encourage your child to connect with the math skills he or she is learning. In Thinking Kids Math, your child will learn about counting, sequencing, ordinal numbers, graphing, time, and money. Thinking Kids'(R) Math is a series of hands-on, manipulative math activities aligned to the Common Core State Standards. Each 192-page book consists of different types of grade-appropriate hands-on activities. This series was built on the idea that children learn math concepts best through hands-on experiences. These activities will provide hours of fun while encouraging Common Core Standards through active learning.
To many outsiders, mathematicians appear to think like computers, grimly grinding away with a strict formal logic and moving methodically--even algorithmically--from one black-and-white deduction to another. Yet mathematicians often describe their most important breakthroughs as creative, intuitive responses to ambiguity, contradiction, and paradox. A unique examination of this less-familiar aspect of mathematics, How Mathematicians Think reveals that mathematics is a profoundly creative activity and not just a body of formalized rules and results. Nonlogical qualities, William Byers shows, play an essential role in mathematics. Ambiguities, contradictions, and paradoxes can arise when ideas developed in different contexts come into contact. Uncertainties and conflicts do not impede but rather spur the development of mathematics. Creativity often means bringing apparently incompatible perspectives together as complementary aspects of a new, more subtle theory. The secret of mathematics is not to be found only in its logical structure. The creative dimensions of mathematical work have great implications for our notions of mathematical and scientific truth, and How Mathematicians Think provides a novel approach to many fundamental questions. Is mathematics objectively true? Is it discovered or invented? And is there such a thing as a "final" scientific theory? Ultimately, How Mathematicians Think shows that the nature of mathematical thinking can teach us a great deal about the human condition itself.
Teaching our children to think and reason mathematically is a challenge, not because students can't learn to think mathematically, but because we must change our own often deeply-rooted teaching habits. This is where instructional routines come in. Their predictable design and repeatable nature support both teachers and students to develop new habits. In Teaching for Thinking, Grace Kelemanik and Amy Lucenta pick up where their first book, Routines for Reasoning, left off. They draw on their years of experience in the classroom and as instructional coaches to examine how educators can make use of routines to make three fundamental shifts in teaching practice: Focus on thinking: Shift attention away from students' answers and toward their thinking and reasoning Step out of the middle: Shift the balance from teacher-student interactions toward student-student interactions Support productive struggle: Help students do the hard thinking work that leads to real learning With three complete new routines, support for designing your own routine, and ideas for using routines in your professional learning as well as in your classroom teaching, Teaching for Thinking will help you build new teaching habits that will support all your students to become and see themselves as capable mathematicians.
This book is an amazing resource for teachers who are struggling to help students develop both procedural fluency and conceptual understanding.. --Dr. Margaret (Peg) Smith, co-author of5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematical Discussions Robert Kaplinsky, the co-creator of Open Middle math problems, brings hisnew class of tasks designed to stimulate deeper thinking and lively discussion among middle and high school students in Open Middle Math: Problems That Unlock Student Thinking, Grades 6-12. The problems are characterized by a closed beginning,- meaning all students start with the same initial problem, and a closed end,- meaning there is only one correct or optimal answer. The key is that the middle is open- in the sense that there are multiple ways to approach and ultimately solve the problem. These tasks have proven enormously popular with teachers looking to assess and deepen student understanding, build student stamina, and energize their classrooms. Professional Learning Resource for Teachers: Open Middle Math is an indispensable resource for educators interested in teaching student-centered mathematics in middle and high schools consistent with the national and state standards. Sample Problems at Each Grade: The book demonstrates the Open Middle concept with sample problems ranging from dividing fractions at 6th grade to algebra, trigonometry, and calculus. Teaching Tips for Student-Centered Math Classrooms: Kaplinsky shares guidance on choosing problems, designing your own math problems, and teaching for multiple purposes, including formative assessment, identifying misconceptions, procedural fluency, and conceptual understanding. Adaptable and Accessible Math: The tasks can be solved using various strategies at different levels of sophistication, which means all students can access the problems and participate in the conversation. Open Middle Math will help math teachers transform the 6th -12th grade classroom into an environment focused on problem solving, student dialogue, and critical thinking.
"Mathematical thinking is not the same as 'doing math'--unless you are a professional mathematician. For most people, 'doing math' means the application of procedures and symbolic manipulations. Mathematical thinking, in contrast, is what the name reflects, a way of thinking about things in the world that humans have developed over three thousand years. It does not have to be about mathematics at all, which means that many people can benefit from learning this powerful way of thinking, not just mathematicians and scientists."--Back cover.
