Letting go of the grid in an urban school garden! - By Courtney Lepetich

 Letting go of the grid in an urban school garden!

Here is the link to my final project.  Please let me know if you have any difficulty in accessing the lesson plans or other resources.

A post-course optional viewing if you're interested: Clouds Are Not Spheres (Mandelbrot)

 Hello everyone! I know that our course is completed now, but I wanted to share a very cool film that I recently discovered. It's a bio and extended interview with the late, great mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot (of the Mandelbrot Set fractal), and a lovely introduction to the fractal shapes of so many things, including clouds, mountains, trees, and also economics graphs and other human-generated shapes. 

Here is the link to Clouds Are Not Spheres. Hope you enjoy it!

Trigonometry Flex your Muscle!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/17xOE9b-lJ570lQXz-EaWosB8e8Qzjw9o?usp=drive_link

Bringing Yoga Into Math Classrooms

 Here is the link to google drive folder for my Final Project - Bringing Yoga Into Classrooms:

EDCP 553 Final Project Gill

By Kanwaljit Gill

A project is Scale - Courtney Fox & Shannan Downey

 The following link will take you to our presentation! And this link will take you to the google drive with all the resources and lessons. 

Presentation as a video [copy into browser]: 

file:///Users/courtneyfox/Downloads/scrnli_3_20_2024_3-53-51%20PM.webm

Enjoy,

Courtney & Shannan

What Sounds and Stories Live in Numbers-Final Project by Karen Kehl 

(Presentation) https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qycu5NFLTeUP4wuyYrfP1hMsYrpIIhbW/view?usp=sharing

(Slide Deck) https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1VjgoICE-GLeYTsOwAtUqHje52wrsVIht/edit?usp=drive_link&ouid=103742551066495156699&rtpof=true&sd=true

Circles of Wisdom: Final project from Felipe Merino

 Here is Felipe's project (he ran into a technical difficulty uploading it here). Thanks Felipe!

Final Presentation - Circles of Wisdom (Slides Deck)

Final Presentation - Circles of Wisdom (Video)

Garden Grids - Theresa Lee & Reed Moore

Hello Susan and interested others!  Below you'll find a link to the presentation of our final project.  

Garden Grids - Theresa & Reed

Weaving Through Mathematics - By Kaitlin Burns and Jodi Thompson

 Here is our presentation - Weaving Through Mathematics by Kaitlin and Jodi

Presentation

Worksheets

Exploring a fractional nature walk through artwork or movement - EDCP 553 Final Project

Here is the link to my Google Drive folder, containing my project materials and video.

Thank you for your time spent listening to my presentation. It is deeply appreciated.

Patterns are Everywhere!

 Here is the link for my google folder with all of my resources and video - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LzfTyqqokQFIkNa1SdF_BEAXNXnzxmth?usp=drive_link

Learning with the seasons through mathematics

 Please click here to watch my video presentation and here to see the lesson plan that goes with my outdoor math task! 

Our final optional Screenside Chat Zoom March

Hello everyone! For those who could make it, we had a good Screenside Chat today to wrap up the course.
The highlight was that everyone at the meeting gave a presentation of their project (some of them fully complete, others close to completion). The class projects are consistently very well done and are original, varied and interesting. It was great to hear people leading us through the process and results of their projects today, and I look forward to watching the recordings as you post them on the class blog.

Here is a link to the recording of our Zoom meeting today.

Note that the first part of the recording has some very helpful pro tips from Mike (and others) about how to record your slides and narration, how to include videos in your presentation, and more!

Another important note: In case you need an extension to complete and post the final version of your project, I am very happy to grant you an extension of up to a week (up until Monday March 25). All you have to do is email me to request the extension -- then you can consider it granted. I just need to keep track of when people will be posting their projects.

Thanks very much to everyone for your excellent work on the activities, screenings, readings and responses in your reading groups throughout the course! I will be sending each person feedback on your overall work on these weekly assignments along with an evaluation of your final project in an email that will be sent out over the next two weeks. I have been reading your weekly posts throughout the course, and they are really well done, ranging from very good to excellent.

All the best, and congratulations as you complete this course and, I hope, take some new approaches and ideas with you for your teaching and studies.

Susan

Hear, Play, Graph: Musical Composition, Notation and Representation - Pat Morris and Dahlia Benedikt

 Hi everyone,

Here is the recording of our project, along with our slide deck and lesson resource. Thank you!

Presentation

Slide Deck

Lesson Resource

Hannah Nicholson - How many ways can you show a repeating pattern?

 

You can my final project submission video, here.

A link to my slide deck can be found, here (with my video) and here (without my video explanation).

Enjoy!

Problem Posing and Solving Through Pretend Play

 

I'm really excited to share this project with you. This idea has been percolating since we did our Literature Reviews for EDUC 500 and it's very rewarding to see them build on each other and start to come to fruition. 

Big thanks to Dahlia Benedikt, Diane Wiens, Mike Wong, Dr. Cynthia Nicol and Dr. Susan Gerofsky for their feedback throughout this project. One of the things I've liked best about this program is the collegial collaboration that helps us to make our ideas stronger and helps us to be our best selves. 

I'm still working on downloading my presentation from Canva so I can upload it here. For now, here's the link: Video presentation. 

Cheers, 

Tamara

Mathematics In Kwakwak̓awakw Regalia

 Good Evening,

Please use this link to view my final presentation. G̱ilakas'la!

Math Mosaic By Axel Soos & Sue Park

We hope everyone enjoys watching our recording 😁 !

Math Mosaic Presentation Slides

Video Recording

A Deeper Understanding of Polynomial Functions Using Embodied Approaches

 We weren't able to link our presentation as an mp4, so here it is on YouTube.

A Deeper Understanding of Polynomial Functions Using Embodied Approaches - video

Here is a link to our slides - EDCP553 Final Project

All activities, infographics and lesson ideas are linked in the slides.

Thanks!

Cailen and Kelly

Acting Out a Story - Writing and Performing a Mathematical Problem

Please click on the image below to view my video.

To view the slide deck, click here.

Thanks,

Diane

Using Embodied Proportions in Photography to Enhance Students’ use of Photovoice in Mathematics for Social Justice

Hi all, Here is a link to my power point and my recording. Thanks for viewing.

Megan and Mike's Multi-Sensory Social Justice Math Fair

Hello Everyone,

It has been wonderful to learn alongside everyone throughout this course. Please see the attached presentation and all of our files concerning our Multi-Sensory Social Justice Math Fair. We hope you find it engaging. 

EDCP 553 Final Presentation (mp4)

EDCP Final Presentation Slide Deck (pptx)

Lesson 1 Outline

Lesson 2 Outline

Lesson 3 Outline

Lesson 4 Outline

Multi-Sensory Social Justice Fair Student Handout (with SBA Assessment Rubric)

Example of Audio Data (You will need to download it and use Adobe to access the audio files)

Coming to the end of our course... Week 10 optional viewing

 Hello everyone! The time is just rushing past now as we get into Spring Break and the final week of our course together. 

I've been reading and watching the draft projects as they have arrived over the past week, and sending out my responses as quickly as possible. On the morning of Monday March 18 I'll be heading out to Hornby Island for a research trip on a community intergenerational math art project (this year, on mathematical poetry), so the final projects that arrive on the due date of March 18 may not receive comments until after March 25, a heads-up. 

This week there is NO requirement for you to do any blog writing or responding, as I know that everyone will be working on finishing up the final project. But for your enjoyment, optionally and if you have time, I am posting a film of Dr. Edward Doolittle giving a Zoom guest talk to one of my graduate classes in early 2020, before the pandemic. You'll remember Ed's fascinating article from an earlier week's readings. 

The section of the video I thought you might be most interested in is the part where Ed talks about his Starblanket project with his preservice elementary teachers class at First Nations University in Regina (from 6:30 to 13:14). Feel free to watch more if you are interested!

I hope to see those of you who can make it at our final optional Zoom session for the course next Saturday, March 16 from 8:00-9:30 AM Vancouver (**Daylight Savings Time) at the usual Zoom URL (see previous post for the Zoom link). 

By the March 18 deadline, please remember to post your final project to the class blog (i.e., create a new post on this blog, rather than your personal one and post your mp4 video link for your project, along with your name(s)). The most straighforward way I know to share your final project is to upload it to your personal Google Drive, set the 'sharing' to 'anyone with the link', and then make a post for the class blog containing the link to your project. Please also include an image (for example, that could be the title slide from your project slides) along with your link on the post.

On Saturday, we will watch a few of the presentations together, and the rest you can see on your own at home, since there is not time to watch them all in one Zoom session. If your final project is complete or close to complete, and you'd like to share it with the group in our Zoom session, that would be great! I know that not everyone will be ready to share their work on March 16, but I hope that some will. 

We'll also talk about the course in general, and it would be very helpful to me to get your suggestions and feedback for strengthening the course the next time I teach it. It has been very difficult for me this semester not to have been able to get timely feedback to you on your weekly posts, though I have been reading and following them throughout; the conference travel to Australia right in the middle of the course was the deciding factor, and I apologize for this. I will be sending you individual cumulative feedback on your postings and discussions throughout the course -- and I want to reassure you that the work I have been reading from all the members of the class has ranged from very good to excellent. 

Looking forward to seeing those who can be there this Saturday. Thanks for all your engagement and great work throughout our course together!

Susan

Our third and final Zoom Screenside Chat for the course

 

Hello everyone! Apologies for the confusion about dates and times for our final Screenside Chat on Zoom for the course. The time is confirmed as: Saturday March 16, 8AM Vancouver time The earlier morning time slot is meant to include class members who are in East Asian time zones. The March 16 date ought to allow many people to share final projects -- this week is too early for that as many in the class are still in the midst of completing the project. It's been a complicated balance to find a date and time that I hope will work for most -- and of course, Spring Break dates and even the 'spring forward' switch to Daylight Savings Time across most of Canada tonight complicate things. Despite all this, I hope that many of us can meet next Saturday morning (Vancouver time). Looking forward to seeing you if you can make it next Saturday! The Zoom link is the same one we have used before, and it's also included below. Warm wishes Susan ********** Susan Gerofsky 趙書琴 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: EDCP 553 2024 Optional Screenside Chats Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime Join Zoom Meeting <https://ubc.zoom.us/j/62767544561?pwd=N3Z3eFNhSi9adStmUmFzRC9VRHpJUT09> Meeting ID: 627 6754 4561 Passcode: 260622

Week 9 resources: Introduction, viewings, readings and activities: Mathematics & traditional and contemporary practices of making and doing

  

Here is our resource sheet for Week 9! I hope you will enjoy this experience of connecting with a few of the very many ancestral technologies and mathematical patternings that are accessible to us still. Let me know how you find doing these from video instruction -- I know it is easier learned in person, but we do have a good variety of video resources these days too.

And PS: if you are foraging leaves or grasses for the twining activity, please have some scissors or shears to snip those fibres. They can be very strong, and I don't want anyone to cut their hands (as I once did when preparing materials for a workshop -- use scissors for safer harvesting!)

Since this is Week 9 of 10, the readings are mostly shorter, and I hope you'll have enough time to work on your final projects as well.

Next week, there won't be any required blog writing or article reading as you complete your projects. I will post an optional video that you may choose to take a look at if you have time, during or even after the completion of our course together. Hope you are doing great, and looking forward to seeing what you find from our work this week.

Week 8 introduction, viewings, activities and readings: Mathematics & fibre arts, fashion arts and culinary arts

 Hello everyone! Once again (or perhaps it's been continuously so?), it has gotten very difficult to listen to the world news, with much destructive and cruel behaviour being reported. 

Wishing for peace, kindness and a sense of wonder in our world. We can do our work to help kids learn these good and life-sustaining things. Be gentle with yourself and everyone you meet as we find ourselves again in a very troubling moment. I hope that we all find beauty and awe in this amazing world, and find ways to share this with our communities.

Here is our resource sheet for Week 8. I hope you enjoy it and see another very interesting take on what is mathematical and what can help us share our love of shape, patterns and making things.

Our second ScreenSide Chat today (Sunday Feb 25, 9:30-11 AM Vancouver time)

Thanks very much to everyone who was able to attend all or part of our Zoom ScreenSide Chat today!

And in case you weren't able to be there, or would like to review what we talked about, here is the link to the video of the session. (We started the recording after we had taken a few minutes to check in with each other).

We talked about some practicalities of the course: 

• How the course is going for people
  
  
• More about the final course project expectations
   
•  **NOTE: Draft projects are due between March 4 and 11 
  Rationale: The original due date was March 11... then we switched it to March 4 so that there would be time to get feedback and make changes. But since there was some confusion between these two dates, it is ok if you hand in your project draft any time between March 4 and March 11. (If you hand it in earlier, you will get earlier feedback.)

Then we took some time to discuss the affordances and constraints (i.e., the new possibilities and the limitations and difficulties) of bringing the arts, embodied learning and the outdoors into our math teaching, with students of all ages. 

There was also a reminder that next Sunday, March 3 from 10:00 - 11:30 AM Vancouver time, you are invited to participate in the monthly DMAM (Dance, Movement Arts & Math) international online discussion group. This group is an offshoot of the Bridges Math and Art conference, led by Dr. Karl Schaffer, and has been active every month since the summer of 2021 during the pandemic. I find it a very interesting, creative and thought-provoking meeting every month, with discussion, sometimes presentation, and sometimes activities to try out.  This week's Zoom link is listed below. If you would like to join the DMAM mailing group, regardless of whether you can make next Sunday's meeting, please email me and I will let Karl know you'd like to be on the list!

*********************************************

Topic: DMAM
Time: Mar 3, 2024 10:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://fhda-edu.zoom.us/j/84965452658?pwd=hHy9ZSqDAYvvk059feLqTT6g0xg2Ea.1

Meeting ID: 849 6545 2658
Passcode: 136372

New reading groups for the rest of the course

 Hi all. Here are the new reading groups for the remainder of the course -- hope this gives you the chance to have a dialogue with some new people in the course!

i.Shawn Feener (Inuvik NT), Axel Soos (China/ Taiwan), Kelly Legere (Yarmouth NS)

ii.Pat Morris (Hay River NT), Sue Park (Incheion, Korea), Kanwaljit Gill (Surrey BC)

iii.Amanda Pasternak (North Van BC), Cailen Langille (Cedar Lake NS), Malcolm Knoll (Calgary AB)

iv.Tony Domino (North Van BC), Hannah Nicholson (Prince Albert SK), Theresa Lee (New West BC)

v.Dahlia Benedikt (Toronto ON), Megan Schollenberg (Winnipeg MB), Reed Moore (Powell River BC)

vi.Felipe Merino (Santiago Chile), Jodi Thompson (Fernie BC), Diane Wiens (Sooke BC)

vii.Courtney Lepetich (Quesnel BC), Cassidy Cooper (Lethbridge AB), Tamara Shand (Vancouver BC)

viii. Courtney Fox (Okotoks AB), Karen Kehl (Salmon Arm BC), Joshua Essay (Alert Bay/ ‘Yalis BC)

ix. Shannan Downey (Victoria BC), Michael Wong (Burnaby BC), Kaitlin Burns (Langley BC)

Week 7: Mathematics & poetry and novels

  

Hello everyone, and happy Family Day weekend! I was spending time with my family this weekend on beautiful Hornby Island (where the internet access is very wobbly)... Then there was a mechanical problem with the ferry so we didn't know whether or not we would be able to get off Hornby Island and back to Vancouver tonight! Luckily the Hornby-to-Denman Island ferry motor was repaired and service wqwas restarted by about 2:00 PM, so after some waits, we have made it to Nanaimo and will be back in town by... 1:30 AM?! 

Between the travel 'Down Under' and this weekend's travel adventures, I'm sorry to be a bit late with getting this resource sheet to you. I do hope you enjoy it though.

Week 7 resources; Introduction, viewings, activities and readings on math, poetry and novels

My sincere apologies for the lateness in getting you feedback on your project outlines and blog posts as well. I know this has many of you concerned. I will be leading a math art workshop all morning tomorrow, but in the afternoon and evening will be getting you feedback on your project outlines and blog posts to date. Sorry for the delays, and looking forward to getting in touch now and getting you going on your work!

New Reading Groups for the second half of the course: I will post these in a separate post!

Week 6: Introduction, viewings, activities, readings

  

Hello everyone! Here is the link to this week's resources and activities, mostly focused on teaching mathematics through dance and movement. As many of the reading groups have four people now, I've included four readings. (For groups with three people, just choose three of the four).

Remember that this is our first week with the **NEW** reading circle groups (listed in a post below). 

A note that Sunday March 3, 10-11:30 AM Pacific Time, everyone in our class is invited to join in with optional participation in DMAM (Dance, Mathematics and Movement) international online group! I will post more details on the class blog before the end of February. Hope that many of you will be able to attend and participate!

Our next optional class Zoom meeting is tentatively scheduled for Sunday February 25, and I will be adjusting the time to make it more accessible to members of our class in a variety of time zones. Stay tuned, and I will work this out and let you know the time and Zoom link this week.

By next weekend’s posting, I will post new reading groups, just to let everyone get the experience of working with different members of our cohort. (Sorry that I just got off the plane from Australia, and am too jet-lagged to work this out for the next day or two!)

Thanks everyone -- happy to be home, and will be able to give you feedback on your project outlines this week!

Week 5: Introduction, viewings, activity, articles and other resources

 

Here is the link to our Week 5 Introduction (video this time), viewing, activity and articles.

Our theme this week is "Developing mathematics pedagogies that integrate embodied, multisensory, outdoors and arts-based modalities". The emphasis this week, at the halfway point of our course, is curricular integration: how to meaningfully integrate these kinds of activities into lessons and units exploring mathematical ideas, and how to bring together more familiar pedagogies with these embodied ways of learning and knowing.

I hope that this week's work will be helpful as you start to think about your topics and approaches for the culminating assignment for the course!

A reminder that the draft for your major course project is due **Feb 12** ( note correction!) on your personal blogs

 Hello everyone! A reminder that you should be working on the draft outline for your course project -- due Feb 5  ** correction: Feb 12*** and to be posted on each of your personal blogs for our course.

This draft outline will be worth 10% of the course mark. I will be travelling in Australia when you submit this outline, but will try to respond within the next week to ten days with feedback and a mark on this early stage of the project.

Here is what the draft project outline should include:

Format for the outline Feb 12** (corrected):

• Your name(s) and whether you are working alone or with a partner. (Partner work recommended if possible, for the advantages of collaboration
  
  
• Name of the math activity or project
  
  
• Grade level/ course, age of students, school or district
  
  
• Brief point-form outline of the mathematical topic and the embodied, arts-based, outdoors pedagogies you plan to engage (length: 1/2 page to 1 page)
  
  

Draft annotated bibliography of 5-10 articles from the literature (if working individually) or 10-20 articles (if working with a partner) that you plan to consult.

I suggest using Google Scholar or a similar comprehensive scholarly search engine to find more than the required number of articles (perhaps double the number you will end up with),  then sifting through these articles by reading the abstracts, conclusions and reference lists and skimming the articles. Choose the best, most relevant and most interesting articles as the ones you will include in your annotated bibliography.

The annotations should be included in italics following the APA style reference for each article, and should consist of 1-3 sentences that summarize the main point of the article and why you chose it.

An example (from Dr. Karl Schaffer): 
Parsley, Jason and Soriano, Christina Tsoules. “Understanding geometry in the dance studio.” Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, Volume 3, 2009 - Issue 1.
A math professor and dance professor describe their collaboration teaching a joint math and dance class in which students used their bodies to embody the Platonic solids. The students also kinesthetically explored the ellipse, created a dance as part of the class activities. and worked on ways to move in and out of the polyhedral constructions.

The outline is intended to get you started by making a commitment to your topic and getting going on it. You are certainly allowed to change aspects of your project as you work on it throughout the course!

Week 4: Mathematics and the arts introduction -- resources, readings, viewing, activity*

 

Here is the link to our Week 4 resources, readings, viewing and activity (all on one sheet this week). Hope you enjoy it! 

**Addition: Here is the description of the activity for this week.  I realize that I must not have explained it clearly enough -- so here is my attempt to clarify!

(From this week's sheet:)

"The Bridges Math and Art conference has a gallery of mathematical art each year. The galleries from the 2010 to the 2025 Bridges conferences are linked here. Your task this week is to look at the art works from the Bridges conference assigned to you (see list below), and for each person to choose a different art work to look closely at, understand as deeply as you can, and to try to replicate in some way -- by sketching, building, weaving, sewing, beading or otherwise re-making a replica of the artwork. The aim of the replication is to gain a deeper understanding of the connection between the mathematics and the art -- so you will certainly not be judged on your abilities to make the art, but only on the connections you make between the artwork and the mathematical ideas and patterns!

You will notice that some of the art pieces use mathematics that is accessible and familiar, and others use more esoteric mathematics. Be sure to choose an art piece where you can understand the math fairly clearly! At the same time, try to stretch yourself just a bit beyond the familiar too. The artists' statements will help you see the mathematics (and you can even try emailing the artists to ask them more about their pieces, if you have time)."

(Further clarification, I hope):

This means that, for this week's activity, each person should choose one work of mathematical art from the online Bridges art gallery you have been assigned. (We have 9 students and many galleries, so I'll ask you to self-organize to choose a particular gallery for your own assignment.)  Choose something that appeals to you and seems accessible to you.

Take a look at the image of the art piece and at the artist's statement, which should explain a bit about the mathematics and the artwork. Think about it, and take a try at copying the artwork to get some understanding of it 'from the inside'. Note that I don't expect you to reproduce the piece of art exactly, but just to try making or sketching it in a roughed-in way, with the aim of understanding what it is and how it was designed using mathematics.

That is the activity for this week! 

(For further clarification, please check out the film  New math teachers riff on Kandinsky in Binary,  an account of a group of three teacher candidates doing a similar exercise, with more time and in more depth, in relation to a Bridges 2016 work of art by Marc and Marion Chamberland.)

Week 3: Math outdoors -- Resources, readings, viewing, activity

 

Norquay Food Forest in April . Spring will come!

Hello everyone! It's been a snowy week in the Vancouver area, with a very unusual TWO snow days in a row -- and the possibility of a transit strike looming. I hope you are coping well with all the contingencies of life wherever you are.

Here is the link to our Week 3 resources, activity, viewing and readings. I hope you enjoy these! 

The activity sheet is linked here as well as in our Week 3 readings. 

As chef Jared Qwustenuxun Williams often writes on his Facebook page:

Go outside and take children with you.
Nem' ch ut'qul yu suwe's tuhw tu smuneem.

Another sample final project from the 2022 cohort, written up as a Vector article: from Maria Ramirez

 

Here's another great project from the 2022 cohort: Maria Ramirez' project on 3D Math Art in a Secondary School Classroom. Maria wrote up her excellent project as an article for the BC Association of Math Teachers (BCAMT) Vector journal, and it was published in Spring 2023 -- pp. 30 -36. 

Thanks to Maria for permission to share her great project -- and congratulations on the publication!

A sample of a final project from the 2022 cohort course: Christina and Stella's Ribbon Dance: Mathematical Inquiry

  

Links to Lesson Plans and Handouts (sorry, we forgot to mention these in the video):

Patterns and Multiples (Grade 4-6)

Parts of a Circle (Grade 6-7)

Rubric (we are an IB school, so we linked this to Approaches to Learning (ATL) skills. These would be similar to Core Competency skills according to the BC Ministry of Education.

Rubric (Organization, Collaboration, and Reflective)

Many thanks to Christina and Stella for sharing this great project with us!

UPDATE: Please invite our WHOLE class (including Susan and Cynthia) to be co-authors on your blog

 Good morning everyone, on our second snow day this week (!)

In our Zoom Screenside Chat last Saturday, I think we all agreed that it would be a good thing for all of us to be able to access all our blogs.

To make that possible, please go to our spreadsheet with everyone's emails (including mine and Cynthia's), and invite everyone who is not already a co-author on your blog to become either a co-author or a custom reader.

I have invited everyone to be co-authors on our class blog as well, but there are a few people who haven't yet responded to the invitations:

Shawn and Felipe

**UPDATE: Thanks Shawn -- you are now there! 

Felipe, we're waiting for you to accept the co-author invitation to be able to set the privacy to just our class!!

As soon as everyone has accepted the invitations and we have everyone listed as co-authors or custom readers, we will be able to set the privacy on all our blogs ("reader access") to "authors only" or "custom readers only"

Thanks everyone!

More details on the major course project

No doubt you're wondering about the details of your major project for the course! 

I hope that this outline will answer many of your questions -- and please feel free to ask about other aspects of the project that are not covered here.

Hope that this project will bring about new insights, ways to follow up on your own curiosity, and good collaborations with your class colleagues!

Week 2: Multisensory math -- introduction, viewing, activities, readings

Hi everyone! Here is the link to our resources and activities for this week (Week 2, Jan 16 - 22). I hope you enjoy it and have lots of fun with mathematical food, origami, snowflakes, and some thoughts and ideas about multisensory math. 

Let me know if you have any difficulties accessing things.

I hope that everyone in the class will soon sign on as a co-author on our class blog. Once that process is complete, I will be able to seal off the privacy to just our group. Again, if you run into any problems, please do let me know by email.

See you soon!

Susan

Recording and notes from our Saturday January 13 Screenside Zoom Chat

 Hi everyone! Eleven members of our class were able to attend our Zoom meeting on Saturday at 9:30 AM
Vancouver time. It was great to meet everyone who could be there! Here is a link the recording -- apologies that I forgot to press 'record' for the first few introductions:

First Screenside Chat Zoom session, Jan 12 '24

As part of the Screenside Chat, we went over the draft instructions and criteria for our major course project, and I really appreciate the good suggestions people made! I will post the revised project description this evening.

Some other topics that came up:

1. Although each week of our course starts on Tuesday, several people said that they would like to have the new week's screening, activities and readings posted earlier. I will do my best to post things earlier, on Sunday (preferably) or Monday! And I will post our Week 2 material this evening (Sun Jan 14).
   
   
2. There was an interest in seeing some examples of successful final projects from the previous time this course was offered, with the first Math Education MEd cohort two years ago. I will email members of that cohort to ask if they would be willing to share -- and also whether they would be willing and able to share their projects to the David F. Robitaille website. I'll let you know when there are some previous projects that you can look at.
   
   
3. The Saturday 9:30 AM Screenside Chat time is not workable for people in some timezones. Let's find a start time for our other two Screenside Chats that work for all our time zones -- perhaps Saturdays at 3 PM (Vancouver time) -- which would range from 3 - 8 PM across our Canadian and Chilean time zones, and from 7 - 8 AM Sunday in China and Korea, if I have that right? Please let me know if that would work better for you!
   
   
4. At the moment, I have sent out Blogger invitations to everyone in our class to be co-authors on our class blog here, and each of you are sending co-author invitations to me and to the members of your reading group. 
   
   However, it might be nice for everyone to be able to read everyone else's blogs in the class!
   
   It seems that there are two ways to do that, and still keep the blogs private to just our class: (a) We can invite everyone to be co-authors on all our blogs, or (b) we can invite everyone outside our reading group (+ Susan) to be custom readers on our blogs -- and then restrict the blogs to "custom readers only".  Both ways would involve inviting everyone and then responding to over 25 emails. The "custom readers" solution might mean one fewer list on the front of our blogs (though, never having tried this approach, I'm not absolutely sure about that!)
   
   Let me know which approach you'd prefer so that we can all read each other's blogs!

A few Blogger tips and tricks

 

 Hi everyone! Here are a few tips and tricks you might like for blog design:

You might be interested to learn how to get rid of the 'copies' of blog posts that appear at the bottom of our blog screens. Here's how:

Blogger has made it a default to add 'most popular posts' and 'top posts' to the bottom of blog screens. This might make sense for people who run large-scale, more commercialized blogs, but it's not relevant for us. 

You don't necessarily have to remove these, but you are welcome to do so, and it tidies up the screen a bit. Here's how to do it:

1. Go to your dashboard by pressing "Design"
2. Go to "Layout"
3. Look at the "gadgets" in the sidebar and at the bottom of the screen in Layout mode. There must be a box or two at the bottom of the screen that say "Most popular posts" or "Top posts", something like that. Delete them if you don't want to see one or more of your posts repeated!
4. Similarly, there must be a gadget that repeats the blog title in the right sidebar. Delete it if you don't want that!
5. Don't forget to save your layout by clicking on the weird little floppy disc 'save' icon in the bottom right corner of your screen before your leave "Layout" mode.

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Blog posts are generally considered more appealing if they are illustrated -- with a photo, drawing, diagram, etc. You can use your own photos or find something online, but please make sure that you are not violating copyright by 'grabbing' something you like online!

When you do a Google image search, click on the "Tools" box, and then the arrow for "Usage Rights". Then click on the drop-down menu choice, "Creative Commons licenses". This will restrict the images to ones where the photographers/creators have agreed that others can freely use and share them -- so you should be safe to use the Creative Commons licensed images.

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If you are pasting text into your blog for your assignments (for example, from a Word document or another word processing app), sometimes it needs reformatting to be readable on your blog. It's easy to do:

• Paste your text into a blog post --> ***Update: First save your Word document (under "Save As") as a Plain Text (.txt) document. Then copy and paste the text from the .txt document... it doesn't seem to work directly from Word anymore!
• Highlight the text
• Go to the Blogger formatting bar at the top of your new post, and click on the icon of a capital T with a diagonal bar through it -- the "clear formatting" icon. That will put the newly-pasted text into the default format your blog uses (the font, colour, spacing etc. for your blog theme). 

Alternatively, if you want to post text and keep its original formatting, you can:

• Post your Word doc or PDF or other document to your Google Drive
• "Share" it so that "anyone with the link can view" and copy the sharing URL
• Then paste the URL into your blog post, and readers can access the document via your Google Drive
• If you want to really get fancy, you could type something (like 'Here is my document'), highlight those words, and go to the 'link' icon at the top of your new post screen (looks like a link of chain). It will prompt you to paste your Google Drive URL into a box on screen... and then you will have a hot link that takes the reader directly to your Google Drive document.

Note that you can post links to documents, photos, slides, videos -- just about any kind of computer file this way.

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To save your work as you go when making blog posts:

• Go to the 'Preview' button at the top right corner of the page, and click the downward arrow to the right of it. You'll get a drop-down menu with the choice to 'preview' or 'save/ update'. Choose 'save/ update' and your new blog post in progress will be saved. If you have a long or complicated post, it's good to save as you go several times.
  
  
• There is sometimes an image of an old-fashioned floppy disc (usually in the bottom right corner of the screen?) If you hover over that image, you should have the word "save" appear. That is another way to save things on your blog!

That's it for now! 

A question as you get started: How long should weekly blog posts be? Is there an expected word count?

 Hi everyone! I know that many people need to know more about expectations about the length and nature
of your weekly blog posts. Here's an outline for starters -- let me know by email or in the comments if you have further questions:

The genre of blogging favours relatively brief posts with lots of ideas packed in, accompanied if possible by photos or illustrations, diagrams, video, audio, etc. So shorter, concise and full of ideas and connections is better than very long, wordy posts in the form of an essay.


That said, there are several things you are asked to post on each week. From our course outline (link posted on the first class blog entry):


Each person will be responsible to read the introduction to the topic, watch the video, try the experience (and document with a few photos or a video of what you did), and read and think about the reading you have chosen. You will share your reflections on all these with the members of your study group by a given day (by Saturday at 8 PM), and then read and respond to the reflections your group members have posted before the end of the week (by Monday at midnight).


Starting from your reading response: this should be approximately 4-5 paragraphs long:
1) First paragraph: a concise summary of the article (because the others will likely not have read it)
2) Second and third (and fourth?) paragraphs: Two or three 'stops' (things that made you stop to think, feel, connect, respond, etc. in the article -- see blog post on How to write a reflection on readings in this course: Find two or three 'stops' and write about them, and then end with a question!)

3) Last short paragraph: A question to promote discussion in the responses from your fellow group members.


You should also post your response and documentation on the introduction to the topic, the video and the experience. If you can take some photos of the way you carried out the experience and post some of these, that would be very helpful!

 
I would expect this part of your weekly post to also be around 4 paragraphs long, give or take, plus photos or diagrams or video or audio.

Our first of three (optional) Zoom Screenside Chats confirmed for Saturday, January 13, 9:30-11:AM (Vancouver time)

 Hi everyone! Our first, optional Zoom screenside chat is now confirmed for this coming Saturday, Jan 13,
9:30 - 11:00 Vancouver time. Here is the Zoom link: 

Susan Gerofsky 趙書琴 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: EDCP 553 2024 Optional Screenside Chats

Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime

Join Zoom Meeting

https://ubc.zoom.us/j/62767544561?pwd=N3Z3eFNhSi9adStmUmFzRC9VRHpJUT09

Meeting ID: 627 6754 4561

Passcode: 260622

We will plan to video record this session and post the video on the blog for those who are unable to attend on Saturday. Looking forward to meeting those who can attend!

Week 1: Mathematics and the Body -- Introduction, viewing, activity and readings

 

Here it is, everyone -- our Week 1 readings, viewings, activity and all! Here is a link to everything. You can download this Word document if that is convenient, or just read it online, and follow the internal links within it to access the viewing, activity sheets and readings

Let me know if you have any problems accessing anything, or if the instructions are unclear. I am very much looking forward to your reflections, accounts and discussion of your explorations!

(A little introductory video -- of course, with some melodeon music!)

Sharing your blog URL, inviting Susan and reading group to co-author your blog, and setting privacy to 'authors only'

 I hope your blog turned out to be beautiful, and that you are satisfied with it! (And if you are encountering any difficulties, please email me for help with it.)

1) Once you have set up your blog, please go to the google spreadsheet linked here, and add your blog URL and the email address you used to create the blog. You'll notice that I have used my gmail address (gerofsky.byrne(at)gmail.com), not my UBC email address -- please invite me to co-author your blog using the gmail, as this will save time! **UPDATE: OK, I've now set the permissions for all of us to be editors on this spreadsheet... ;P)

2) After everyone has set up their blog and added their URL and email to the list, you will need to invite me and your reading group members to be co-authors on your blog. To do so:

(a) go to your dashboard (by clicking on "Design" or "New Post" on the upper right hand corner of your blog), 

(b) go to "Settings", scroll down to "Permissions", and choose "Invite more authors"

(c) copy and paste my gmail address and those of your reading group members, and invite them to be blog authors.

3) You should expect to get 4 or 5 'invitation to be a blog author' emails to the email address you've put on the spreadsheet. Please 'accept' each of these on the email, and once again on the web page they take you to. 

4) Once we have all accepted these invitations, we can seal off our blogs so that only class members can find them online and read them. To do this, 

(a) go to the "Settings" page from your dashboard

(b) choose "Reader Access" and select "private to authors"

(c) under "Privacy" click off the button that says "Visible to search engines" 

And that's it! I hope that by week 2 (~January 16), we will have this all completed and ready to share only among our class.  

Tentative reading groups for the course are listed on the course outline. (We will plan to switch up the reading groups, if people would like that, about halfway through the course...)

*Important*: Please set up your individual Blogger blog for this course. Here's how!

Hi everyone. For this course, each student needs to set up a blog on Blogger, invite several others in the class to be 'co-authors', share your blog URL and the email associated with your blog, and then set the privacy to 'authors only'. Here's how, step by step:

1)  Go to blogger.com. Choose 'Create New Blog'. 

2) Sign in. If you already have a gmail account or any kind of google account, use your gmail. (Blogger is a google app, and google loves google.) 

If you don't have a gmail account, you can choose:

(a) to use another email, or

(b) to set up a google/ gmail account following the prompts given on screen ("Create Account").

3)  Choose a name for your blog that begins with your first name. (So my blog would start with "Susan" -- for example, "Susan's Math Explorations").

4)  Choose a URL (web address) for your blog that you will remember, and write it down.

5) You now have a Blogger blog, and should see a welcome dashboard screen like the one shown here! There are still a few steps left to get it looking nice...

6) From the list on the left side of your dashboard screen, choose "Themes". Please scroll down through the many theme choices and choose "Travel Studio" (see screen shot). I like using this 'legacy' theme because it has a nice table of contents that makes it easy to read blogs -- and you can customize it to look the way you like. (However if you feel strongly about choosing some other theme ... that can work too.)

7) Once you pick the theme, go ahead and "Customize" it using the button below the theme. (See screenshot). You can then choose one of many pre-made backgrounds and colour combinations, or even use one of your own photos as a background. Once you choose the background you'd like, don't forget to click on the small "save" icon in the bottom right corner of your screen (looks like an old fashioned floppy disc, for some reason!)

8) You have your blog! Use the back arrow to return to your dashboard and create your first "New Post" by clicking on the the orange "+ New Post" button. You can call this post "Hello world!" (the traditional way), or whatever you like. Type a title and a sentence or two. You can try adding a picture if you're ready to do so. Then publish. Go to "View Blog" (bottom left side of your dashboard screen in blue letters) and you can see your cool new blog!