16 Oct

The Problem with Math is English

By Jon OaksUncategorized,
There have been several separate occasions in my math classes this semester where a student has asked me a question about a vocabulary word and I simply just didn't know the answer.  I took 3 years of Latin in high school and I was an English teacher at one point, so I generally can guess the meaning of a word from the root word.  However, some words just have me stumped.   My new ‘go to’ tool in class is dictionary.com.  Let me give you a few examples of some words that I have looked up during class this semester. Linear Algebra In…
Read More
03 Feb

Twitter Link Round-Up

By Jon OaksUncategorized, , , , , , , , ,
Here's a recap of the links that I've posted on Twitter over the past week or so: 1.  A friend told me that she used this Divisibility Rocks game from over at The Utah Education Network with her Developmental Math students and that it worked really well.  It turns out that they have plenty of other great lesson plans as well. 2.  Z-Type is a very intense typing game.  It turns out that as a Math Instructor, I do have to teach typing, computer, and writing skills as well.  For example:  One student told me just today that he couldn't write…
Read More
16 Dec

Math Vocabulary Becomes Art

By Jon OaksUncategorized, ,
I was researching the best way to use maps to introduce the topic of ordered pairs to a beginning algebra class, when I stumbled upon something totally different, and totally unique:  A website called Wordle that takes text and turns it into JAVA created art.  I actually threw the RSS feed for this website into their art generator (a wonderful option, by the way), and the results are below.  Immediately, my wheels started spinning about how to use this in a math class, and viola!  The nice people who write the Ed Tech 4 Math Blog Technology & Software For Teaching Math already…
Read More