Improve Your Math Grades

I recently published an article written by one of my colleagues, entitled Top 10 Strategies To Improve Your Math Grades. The strategies are straight-foward and apply to any level of math. The author, Jason Gibson, draws on his experience as an instructor and as a student. In fact, Gibson's memory of struggling with his math homework shines through in this article! This article has been valuable to students, parents and educators, all of whom have recommended it to a friend.

Why Learn Math?

The question students ask generation after generation is "Why do we need to learn this math?" They ask it because they really don't see the need to learn a given topic, to bust the teacher's chops, and because they truly want an answer. I doubt the question will ever go away, but having an answer is a good thing. First, I found a great article by a colleague called Why Learn Algebra? This article inspired me to create a WebQuest called Percent in Daily Life. I designed it so that students can find the answer to their own question --with regard to percentages. And so the beat goes on...

Math Lessons and the Anesthesiologist

Last month I had a medical procedure done. The anesthesiologist was trying to relax me by asking about my work. When I mentioned my math site, he said he knew of it from his children. After the procedure, he looked at Math Goodies with my husband. After viewing the lessons section, he complained that he was unclear about navigating it. He inspired me to redesign this section to make it easier to jump from lesson to lesson and from unit to unit. Now if only I knew his name so I could thank him...

Teens, Sleep and School

Over the last year or so I have been reading many articles about teen sleep patterns and how they impact on their performance in school. I remember all too well how tired I was in junior high and high school. So I finally took the plunge and wrote an article entitled Teens, Sleep and School. One researcher pointed out a study in which harder subjects were be offered later in the day. So naturally I thought of math and science. Anyway, I my visitors seem to like it.

Math Teachers

Well, it's back to school already. My, how time flies! It's good to see math teachers have returned. In that vein, I created some teaching tips and ideas for the latest issue of my newsletter. I got some positive feedback from teachers and parents alike...

Fractions

As a classroom middle school teacher, I was of the belief that fractions are something that are taught in elementary school and then reviewed in middle school. So my focus was to teach conversions from fractions to decimals to percents, as shown in my interactive game. However, I have since learned that students have been mystified by fractions since the beginning of time! It will be interesting to see how my nephew learns these concepts in third grade.

New Lessons

As part of the MAM celebration, two new lessons were published on Math Goodies. The lesson on Percent Change was useful to help solve the percent increase and decrease problems on my webquest worksheet. The lesson on Reading and Writing Decimals was also a nice addition to the site. Each lesson covers the topic in-depth, and was previously available only on CD.

Climate Change and Global Warming

I found the theme for MAM 2009, Math and Climate, intriguing, so I decided to create a webquest for students to learn more about it through online explorations. I think the goal of The Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) was to show how higher math and mathematical modeling are used to better understand oceans, the atmosphere, polar ice caps, and their interrelationships. As I did online research, I became intrigued by the scientific evidence of global warming and greenhouse gas emissions. I decided that these issues should be presented to students before the mathematics behind it was introduced. I learned about how humans impact on global warming, and the things they can do to stop it. I also found some sites with facts on "Carbon Math". Next, I came across some great interactive calculators that I knew students would enjoy. These calculators make one's personal impact quantifiable, and more concrete for the student. As a result, my Webquest on Climate Change and Global Warming explores the scientific evidence first. It then explores how things are monitored through the use of mathematics. Next, it examines the human impact and things we can do to stop it. Lasly, students can apply their knowledge by solving related math problems.

Math Awareness Month 2009

Math Awareness Month is held each year in April. The goal of MAM is to increase public awareness and understanding of mathematics. This year's theme is Mathematics and Climate. Many areas of mathematics help scientists to better understand oceans, the atmosphere, and polar ice caps. Researchers are trying to find answers to questions such as: How long will summer Arctic sea ice survive? Are hurricanes getting more intense? How much will sea level rise as ice sheets melt? Mathematics and Climate are very relevant to our world today, so join me as we explore these important issues!

Celebrate Pi Day

Pi Day is a holiday that celebrates the constant Pi (pronounced Pi). The Greek letter , is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi equals 3.1415926535... Thus, Pi Day is observed on March 14, since the digits in this date correspond with the first three digits of Pi. I have created a new webquest to Celebrate Pi Day. Students will learn about the meaning and the history of Pi. They will also celebrate Pi Day with various online activities.

Math WebQuests

I've been busy creating some WebQuests. It's a lot of fun to create online adventures for students. In January, I created the one on Exponents and Scientific Notation. I created one on Integers and Science in February. My visitors have given me some positive feedback, so I think I will continue working on new ones!

Famous Mathematicians

Dr. Margaret Taplin of the Institute of Sathya Sai Education, Hong Kong, has written several articles for publication on Math Goodies. Some of her articles are linked to other articles, so I forgot about this one good one, which I am posting here. She has written some Stories About Famous Mathematicians. Dr. Taplin believes that their struggles can bring a human story to a math class.

Math Worksheets

Worksheets are in high demand on the web. But I sometimes wonder why that is so. My philosophy is that worksheets are good for practice once a concept has been introduced. But most worksheets don't teach the actual concepts. Accordingly, my in-depth, interactive lessons were designed to teach the concepts; whereas, my worksheets are intended for practice of concepts already learned. So I always encourage visitors to try my lessons first. In any event, I have add a new worksheet on fractions, along with the answer key, and I hope to publish more in the next few weeks.

WebQuest on Math and Scientific Notation

The exciting connections between mathematics and science are endless. Scientists from many fields use mathematics to express relationships and to measure the size and distance of objects. My webquest explores some of these connections through the use of scientific notation. Students will browse some of my lessons and other sites. They will then complete my worksheet as well as create their own. I hope this is a first of many new webquests!

Saving Energy and Money

In these hard economic times, I feel compelled to write about saving energy and money. It's a lesson that adults have to deal with, and that children should also be aware of. My husband and I bought a new pellet stove. It's an appliance that helps us save on our oil bill. The heat is virtually emmission free according to the EPA. So far we have saved on one oil bill, and look forward to getting more. We hope that the Obama administration creates some sort of tax deduction for the fuel efficiency on pellet stoves. Learn more about how to save energy and money.

Election Math

My nephew was asked to do a news report about Barack Obama in October. Another classmate did the same on John McCain. Shortly after the election, he said: "I did a report on Obama and he won -he had a lot more votes than McCain!" I seized this teachable moment to discuss the electoral vote, the popular vote, and the math behind each. In fact, I showed him CNN's Election Results Map. You can use this interactive map to look at ratios, proportions and percentages of the electoral vote, the popular vote, and votes by party and state.

New math articles

I have published some new articles on my site. The first one is entitled Math Through Technology. I have also been compiling many other articles on math education which can be found here. Happy reading!

Mathematics and Technology

I have always been fascinated with bringing technology into the math classroom. There are two ways to do this: You can integrate math and technology, making these topics the object of instruction, or you can use technology to facilitate math learning.

Math and technology as the object of instruction

[1] Symbolic logic provides an excellent framework for computer circuitry. When I taught an electronics class at a NY City high school in 1990, I presented lessons on Boolean logic and circuitry. Specifically, I gave a lesson gates such as AND, OR, NAND, and XOR.

[2] Round-Off Error is a good topic to present to students who are learning about repeating decimals. I have students bring in their own calculators so they can see different levels of accuracy for the same repeating decimal. View my article on this topic here.

[3] The theme for MAM 2006 was Mathematics and Internet Security. Math plays a central role in Internet technology, including encryption, making it possible for you to bank, shop and communicate online securely!

Using technology to facilitate math learning

Handheld devices make great tools for using technology to facilitate math learning. This is especially prominent in the field of applied mathematics. There are some great examples of using the iPod to facilitate math learning from the Apple Learning Interchange. You can find them here.

Fractions, Decimals and Percents

Conversions from fractions to decimals to percents are one of the most important topics for middle school students to master. I have always used a conceptual approach to teaching math, but this topic is difficult. I believe that a lot of time would have to be spent to teach a conceptual understanding of this topic. For example, students should be able to develop a number sense and eventually use mental math: If 1/8 is 0.125 then 3/8 is 0.375, and so on. But time is not something teachers really have. On the other hand, a simple mechanical approach is faster and perhaps easier to teach. Either way, do the kids really get it? I have seen them enter 7th grade with a marginal understanding of fractions. That's half the battle. So do we blame the elementary teachers? Is that fair when middle school teachers are blamed by high school teachers for poor preparation of students? Anyway, I called my percent unit Understanding Percent, so you can see what approach I used there. On the other hand, my Percent Goodies game is a vehicle for practicing conversions between fractions, decimals and percents. It would be interesting to enter a brick building again and teach this topic.

New Search, Math News, Technology Tips

Just some random thoughts here. I had to put in a new search tool on my site to prevent it from being vulnerable to malicious hacks. Sigh. I guess being famous is not all it is cracked up to be. The new tool is much nicer than my old one -it is comprehensive like a CNN search. No sooner did I get this done, when my husband discovered that a client of mine was vulnerable to a similar hack on their site.

I came across some nice articles on math education and posted them here. I mentioned this page in my newsletter. I also hope to have some technology tips for my next issue.

13 Years in Cyberspace

As Math Goodies celebrates its tenth anniversary online, I am reminiscing about the World Wide Web in the 1990's. I first started with commercial web design in 1995. As I recall, Microsoft was about to release Windows 95, and had not entered the web arena yet. The browser of choice was Netscape Navigator 2.0. JavaScript was a great scripting language for adding interactivity to static web pages. In fact, when I designed my interactive math lessons in 1998, I was one of the first designers to use pop-up definition windows for instructional purposes. The opening and closing of these windows has always been controlled by the user.

In the 1990's, most people did not have email. The Internet was still in its infancy. It was a medium for a free exchange of information and ideas. S\p\a\m\ was not a widespread problem, and it was considered unsoliticited commercial email.

Things quickly changed as the web became commercialized. Microsoft purchased a product called Vermeer and renamed it FrontPage. They created Internet Explorer. And then came the browser wars. I was a member of a web design mailing list. We constantly struggled to design websites that would work in both IE and Netscape, as well as other browsers. It was a real tough balancing act, since each browser had it's own built-in tools, tags and plug-ins. Not all browsers interpreted JavaScript the same way. One great thing that happened with this mailing list was that we witnessed one of the first animated GIF images. We also witnessed the invention of database applications, Shockwave, Flash and CSS.

I remember seeing one of the first database-driven websites at Fedex.com. You could track a package through their dynamic tool. Fedex.com was an early pioneer of dynamic content generated on the fly. One of the first shockwave-driven web sites was M&Ms, an award-winning site created for Mars Candy.

Companies started flocking to the web to create a "home page". The brochure-ware that resulted (i.e. a single homepage with stuff for sale) proved to be an ineffective way to sell products and services. The worst part was seeing vanilla pages all over the web designed by people who knew some HTML, but nothing about marketing. Would you hire an inexperienced student or a child to design your company's sales literature for print? I think not. And then e-commerce developed, changing the whole web landscape.

I remember the good old days when search engines were free and easy to get listed in. Posting messages to usenet groups was easy with DejaNews (now Google Groups). I remember when COPPA compliance laws were enacted and privacy policies became the big trend. Nowadays, it's not a matter of whether you have a privacy policy, but rather, what that policy stipulates. Mailto links are becoming a thing of the past because of widespread s\p\a\m. Forms have become vulnerable to people who hijack them for malicious purposes.

My math newsletter, started in July 1999, was one of the first educational newsletters on the Internet. The number of subscribers grew exponentially. Newsletters became a great way to bring visitors back to a web site. Unfortunately, as more and more sites created e-newsletters, bulk mail became synomyous with illegitimate email. Nowadays, people sign up for newsletters and when the issue arrives in their inbox, they hit the S\P\A\M\ button instead of the delete button. So now any unwanted email message is considered s\p\a\m by many people, leaving legitimate newsletter publishers having to prove themselves. IMHO, subscribers are not taking responsibility for their own actions, and some ISPs are over-filtering.

Anyway, although some things have changed for the worse, the web has certainly changed and improved the lives of many people around the world. New online innovations appear daily. Flash animations and videos are widely used. My math games, such as Integer Football, are designed using Flash. RSS feeds are here as well as social networking. Web conferencing and instant messaging is certainly useful for many people. Many electronic and other companies are publishing their installation and product manuals online, saving time, money and paper. Banks are trying to go paperless. Even some goverment agencies are making effective use of web technologies. The web has emerged and continues to grow and evolve.

No part of this blog post may be reproduced without my express written permission.

Regression of math skills

Regression is the loss of learned skills; usually after breaks in instruction such as after summer vacation. Some schools have summer math programs to prevent this. The big complaint I hear is that the packets get lost and so does the child's motivation. Students can practice their math skills at Math Goodies. We even have a special page that outlines what they can do over the summer.

From a parents perspective, I feel very strongly about this. My son got top grades in reading and math this past school year. However, we still encourage him to practice his reading and math skills over the summer whenever possible.

Math CD on the go

I decided to offer a summer sale on my CD for home use. I think it definitely makes a difference to people if they know they are saving 10 percent. Students can use my CD on a laptop in the car (for short and long trips). Let's hope for a good summer free of lost learning...

Math Goodies Home Page

Summer is here. So I gave my home page a face lift. He he. Nothing major. Just more information for new visitors to mull over and larger margins for easier reading. I guess after 10 years you start to lose your objectivity... But I got some nice suggestions from my cyberpals recently, so this was a good time to implement those suggestions.

Math CD

I redesigned my CD page. I got tired of the clutter that amassed over the past few years, so it was time. My cyberpals tell me that it has a "clean design", and that it showcases my best goodies. They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words, so I am hoping that is exactly the case!

Math Poll

Reading and math math programs over the summer have become quite commonplace given the "retention lost" by students over the summer. Accordingly, I created a new anonymous poll which asks: Do you plan to have a summer math skills program for your students or children?. It should be interesting to see the results...

I get my own son summer skills books at the local bookstore. They are really in sync with what he does in school, both for language arts and for math. And he loves to read, so that takes care of that problem.

Math Articles

I came across a few articles on math education that I think are quite interesting. The first one is entitled Mathematicians Make Three-Dimensional Images of Music. Imagine a "geometrical technique for mapping out music in coordinate space." The music of The Beatles is even analyzed! "The new techniques reveal fascinating differences between rock and classical music, and even between Paul McCartney and John Lennon." Of course, growing up in the 1960's as an avid Beatles fan, I find this fascinating!

The second article I found is entitled Why the Best Math Curriculum Won’t Be a Textbook. This article explains how digital curricula could change math learning on a large scale.

Happy Reading!

The Factor Tree Game

The feature of the week is The Factor Tree Game. I don't think visitors are finding this game very easily. Hopefully they will play it now and test their factoring skills. It is best played with sound, but that's optional.

Math Awareness Month

April is Math Awareness Month. The goal of MAM is to increase public awareness and understanding of mathematics. The theme for MAM 2008 is Math and Voting. I am impressed with the theme chosen by The Joint Policy Board for Mathematics. (Past themes were really not of much interest to students.) This year they are having a contest in which you create a video about what math and voting means to you. The videos are being hosted at YouTube. You can win $500. I think this Web 2.0 theme is definitely something that is more appealing to today's students!

Math Lessons

It's been a busy month, but I updated my math lessons page. Now if only people would actually read the terms and conditions for using my math lessons.