Learning in the 21st Century

  Introduction  As the results of the phase three trials for the first successful vaccines against the coronavirus are released, my mind couldn't help but gravitate towards the mathematical nature of the results revealing process. The idea of designing a trial to test for the efficacy and safety of a vaccine is inherently mathematical in nature. I began to ask myself what are the sort of ways that I could use this situation to teach mathematics to my students and get them more interested in the mathematical content and the theory behind this type of situation. The most obvious tie up is in the area of data and probability and understanding how scientists leverage established knowledge in this area, to design effective vaccine trials. Here are a list of articles I found and some questions I thought of, that may be of use if I was to develop this idea further. Please feel free to add your comments below if you have some ideas for questions you could add, as this was just a quick...

  Overview  These are some recent interesting online resources that I have identified that could be used to create authentic learning experiences for mathematics students and improve their general quantitative literacy. 1) Present Value of Cash Flows   2) Data Grapher: GR3 - GR8 3) Math Apprentice   4) Virtual Manipulatives   5) Investopedia 6) Numbeo - Cost of Living   7) Teaching Mathematics using Tennis   8) Validating Questionnares 9) Tinkercad 10) Maths made Magic  

Image Credit Follow on  In the previous post ( link to part 1 )  I discussed the basic mathematical  ideas to have in mind when thinking about purchasing a car. I had decided I would look at cars in the range of 80 - 100 000 rand and I wanted to buy a used car because of the better value offered. The videos in post 1, suggest cars around the range of 2 - 4 years old, as they offer the best trade off between future maintenance costs and depreciation on the purchase price after you have bought it. I agree with the facts laid out and will probably look for something in the 3 to 4 year old range. However I still need to check to see if the same patterns on maintenance costs and depreciation are also true in the South African context.  This points to our next step in our search. How do we get accurate information relevant to the SA context to see if these ideas mentioned are true and so allow me to get closer to my ultimate goal, buying a car. I am going to start with an ...

Introduction I was having a chat with a staff member at my school recently and we were talking about all the copying and pasting that goes on these days with all teachers trying to teach online. It struck me that one of the most useful skills that I have in my workflow is that ability to take multiple screenshots quickly and combine them into a pdf for easy distribution. So here is a brief description of how to do just that.  Windows To save your Screenshot https://www.howtogeek.com/ 226280/how-to-take- screenshots-in-windows-10/ Where it is saved by default  https://www.digitalcitizen. life/how-change-default- screenshots-folder-location- windows To combine your Screenshots  https://www.techspot.com/ guides/1634-combine-images- into-single-pdf-document/ Mac 1) To take screenshot CMD Shift 3 or 4  2) Screenshot saves to Desktop  3) Select relevant PNG images  4) Open with Preview  5) Cmd A (select all) 6) File  7) Print  8) Print  9) Sav...

Introduction I am at the stage now where I am finally beginning to write my dissertation and have noticed that this again needs a new set of skills. So I have decided to write another post to house the collection of resources I have used as I attempted to do this. This is actually the 5th post I have written which deals with resources I have found on the dissertation journey. I have linked the other three articles below for easy reference. Resources for Academic Writing with APA Focus Finding Literature for Research More Resources for Structuring Educational Research   Understanding Social Network Analysis with a Focus on Teacher Collaboration   Setting up Word Documents & Templates When writing a dissertation you need to have pretty decent word document processing skills and since I didn't really have those when I started I decided to read as many articles as I could and watch any related YouTube videos. The tools I am using are a 2018 Macbook Air with a copy of word for ...

Introduction I have just returned from an overseas teaching post and I find myself in the position that I need to buy a car in order to get around. Almost everyone will be faced with a similar situation in their life at some point. I have done a lot of writing recently about how to make Mathematics Teaching more authentic and this is exactly the type of situation teachers could use. So what are some of initial questions we need to be asking?  So probably the first decision one needs to make when buying a car, is approximately what amount of money can your budget support for the purchase.  In my particular case I am willing to spend between R80 000 and R110 000 cash. Then you need to decide are you going to buy a new or used car.  Once you have made these two decisions, the number of options available should be greatly reduced and therefore your decision making should be easier. The videos below gives a nice feel for the tradeoffs between buying a new or used car. Based on...

Introduction As I have recently come to the end of my 2 year contract teaching Mathematics at my first IB teaching post. I wanted to record my experiences while they were still fresh in my head and ripe for reflecting on. My particular context was that of a full continuum school where we had the PYP, MYP & DP programs running. The relatively new CP program was not running at the school where I was teaching. The majority of my time over the two years was spent teaching Mathematics in the MYP program and then about a quarter of my time was spent teaching Mathematics in the DP program  I also acted as a personal project supervisor (PP) for M5's and was also lucky enough to go on a number of Interdisciplinary Unit Trips (IDU's) and Outdoor Pursuit Trips (OP). This is an overview reflection and therefore quite broad, but hopefully at some point I will get to go into more detail on other relevant aspects. General Structure  In terms of understanding the overall design of an IB e...