Deb's Mathematics Blog

With the summer holidays upon us and plans for summer travel underway, why not support those math concepts during your travel time? When I grew up, a long car trip meant singing tunes to pass the time, however, with my own children I played car math! Seize the opportunity to make learning fun even on those summer trips. Everything you need to know is right here!

If you're looking for free textbooks, Textbook Revolution is the site worth investigating. You'll find plenty of online free math textbooks including topics like calculus, linear algebra, algebraic topology, Euclid and much, much more. If you're a self directed learner, this may be all you need.

Students often wonder and ask 'when will I ever use this stuff' when making reference to a variety of different mathematics concepts. And, although the skills behind the scenes like problem solving, inductive and deductive reasoning, using logic are skills used lifelong, here is a wealth of information on how math is used in technology. Math is linked from everything like graphics and cad, food technology, environmental health, forestry and wildlife and much, much more. Be sure to check it out!

Here are some word problems for 'Menu Math'. A great example of combining money, word problems and authentic learning. After all, it's not enough that young learners just understand computational math, they need to select the right computations and apply them to 'real' situations. These 10 worksheets are all in PDF for quick printing and include the answer sheet on the 2nd page.

See also:

• Grade by grade word problems
• Multiplication Word Problems
• All Worksheets

With summer here, a little math each day will sure help to retain the previous year's math skills.

A very popular topic for tutoring service tends to be Algebra and the Algebra Help Centre offers some unique services in all areas of Algebra. You'll find help in

• Pre-Algebra:
• Elementary Algebra
• Algebra 1 & 2
• Intermediate Algebra
• Linear Algebra
• College Algebra
• Boolean Algebra
• Matrix Algebra
• Abstract Algebra
• Advanced Algebra

Services are provided one to one, email and through the phone. For further information, be sure to check out their website.

It seems that students think they're good at math when they start school but somewhere between elementary and middle school, they start to lose that confidence and they aren't so sure that they're so good at math anymore. Great teachers can help tremendously, in fact, great teaching is what they need! This series of videos hones in on the missing links of middle school math.

Bookmark this one and if you have any time this summer, learn how you can become a better middle school math teacher but teaching for understanding, especially where the understanding of concept is critical.

Now this is a question I had some fun with this week and I'll share with you some of the responses:

• From a Kindergarten student: "It's when you make circles and squares"
• From a 3rd grade student: "I had that for homework, my teacher told me to find the 'things' at home, and my TV was one."
• From a 7th grade student:"It's math, you know, shapes and solids and all those measurements, we're doing Pythagorean now...."
• From an 11th grade student: "My teacher calls it one of the big pillars in math, I guess Algebra is the other one, Geometry is about lines, angles, properties, proofs, circles, area volume, all that kinda stuff really."

Well there you pretty much have it! I'm going to infer that the 3rd grade student meant that her TV was probably a rectangular prism! However, I did discover that even as young as kindergarten, these students all seem to have some idea of what geometry is.

Give them this site and let them have fun learning math. Math Games & Quizzes features many unique math games targeting grades 1-8. The goal of this site is to make math fun, and from what I see, it is promising. the process of adding email features to games so that students can email their scores to their teachers. B. Sheppard (President) tells me they're also in the process of adding email features to the games so that students can email their scores to their teachers. For the keen K-8 math educators, this is a great tool do do some action research on!

You might also like their 'Brain Games', afterall, these require deductive and inductive reasoning, problem solving, thinking and logic - same skills used in math.

Since the early 70's, opinions about how math should be taught and not taught have certainly created many heated discussions leading to the 'math wars', the 'new math' 'fuzzy math' and a few more. The internet has its share of these opinions (just search the term 'math reform'), teach with manipulatives, don't teach with manipulatives, teach rote, don't teach rote, use problem based approaches, don't use problem based approaches; all premised on 'teaching for understanding' and the list goes on and on. Personally, I've always thought the K-8 curriculum in many jurisidictions is just too cluttered, I also feel that teachers could sure benefit from professional deveoplment about best practices, if of course we could come to agreement on what best practice is in mathematics!

Here's a blog worth reading if you like the common sense approach.

Use the summer holidays to improve your math scores! Finding the right math tutor can be more challenging than one would think. The main reason for hiring a math tutor is to improve math marks. However, to improve math marks means to learn the math and to learn the math means to understand the concepts. Sometimes, learners get caught up in trying to memorize patterns, rules and or procedures without really understanding why they're used or why they even work.

Here are a few pointers to help you find the right tutor:

• Identify the area the help is needed and look for a match, somebody who has a proven track record.
• Understand that one shot deals are usually not effective, book your tutor on a regular basis until the confidence and achievement level has improved.
• Make sure a good relationship is established. You need to feel comfortable with your tutor, you need to feel good about succeeding in math and a good tutor will ensure that you develop a 'can do attitude'.
• You should be completely relaxed with your tutor and be able to address your weaknesses without embarassment.
• Each session should leave you feeling much better about your ability to do math.

I have seen many success stories when students are matched up with the right tutor. Take your time in locating a tutor, make sure you feel comfortable and successful. If not, don't hesitate to try more than 1 tutor. Good luck!