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!

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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!