The 140 days of the 85th Texas Legislature draw to a close at the end of May. And as with teachers and students at the end of the school year, it’s crunch time. Lots of education bills were filed, many relating to mathematics education. Here are the three that I’m watching this week. There are many other important bills, some relating to education, out there. But these are the ones I think have the most potential to affect Texas mathematics education. I’ll update this blog entry as the session moves. Current time stamp is at the top, and I’ll make […]
The Fish Was THIS Big!
A Fish Story I’ve said this before, but mathematics occurs in the strangest of places. Walking down the street in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, I was admiring the architecture. Lo and behold, suddenly there appeared a tile mosaic of a fish on the side of one building. I’m such a math nerd, so I couldn’t help but notice the square tiles and wonder, how many tiles did it take to make that fish? Or in math speak, “what is the area of the fish?” Then the teacher in me emerged. I’ve been on a kick lately with the “What do you […]
Using Real World Data – Histograms
Every now and again, you’re watching the news or reading the newspaper, and then all of a sudden – bam! Math slaps you upside the head. Histograms or some other strange phenomena appear right out of nowhere. And usually, when you least expect it. Suddenly, real world data are being used to make a point in the media. And if you’re a math teacher, you immediately seize on the data and think about how you can turn it around with your kids. Math in a Burrito On a discussion forum, I ran across a post that linked to this article in […]
