This is a straight-out plug for David Treeby, a colleague and good friend and ex-student. David was a Monash undergraduate and eventually went into teaching, doing a (very good) PhD with the Mathologer along the way. David now teaches at Polo Grammar Scotch College, where he is able to do great stuff. We have a different post ready to go on David’s work, as soon as he gives the green light, but something else came up.* Continue reading “David Treeby and His Minions Pick Up Sticks”
Category: NotCH
Notch 9: Ed Barbeau’s Classroom Problems, and His Request
Ed Barbeau is a Canadian maths ed legend, and an occasional commenter here. I previously noted Ed’s astonishingly extensive website, which is also listed in the Good Resources post, and I posted a long comment of Ed’s on gifted education.
Ed has recently compiled a list of classroom problems, accompanied by discussions, which he has used “positively” in classrooms. He is now requesting teachers will also give them a try and see how they go, and let Ed know how they go: Ed wants your feedback.
Ed’s document of problems is here (and is embedded below), and you can email Ed. to provide feedback. (Of course everyone is also free to comment below.) Ed also makes it clear that he is happy for the document to be passed around further afield.
What follows are two (slightly edited) introductions: a short one, which Ed used to introduce the problems on an email group; then the longer introduction from the document, which is worth reading in itself. Continue reading “Notch 9: Ed Barbeau’s Classroom Problems, and His Request”
Notch 8: Battling Away at Prince Alfred College
Anthony Harradine is tireless in trying to save Australian Maths Ed. He is responsible for MathsCraft and Numerical Acumen, and all manner of things. Anthony invariably takes a positive, Nice Guy approach to all this. Nonetheless, we get along very well.
Continue reading “Notch 8: Battling Away at Prince Alfred College”
Notch 7: Ed Barbeau on Gifted Education
A very pleasing irony of writing this thoughtless and classless, “We’re all doomed” blog is that it has resulted in my being introduced to thoughtful and classy heroes like Tony Gardiner, mathematical stars who have been working tirelessly for decades that we not be doomed. The most recent introduction is to Edward Barbeau, a star of Canadian mathematics education. Tony Guttmann, AKA Mr. Very Big, alerted me to a long comment Ed contributed to a maths-ed discussion, on gifted education. Ed has kindly permitted me to reproduce his great comment here. Continue reading “Notch 7: Ed Barbeau on Gifted Education”
NotCH 6: Not Abbott’s and Not Costello’s Mulsification
We have the bigger projects (AC, ITE, SD) in the works, plus an FOI appeal to do, plus 2000 words for a lefty magazine due in a couple weeks. We’re kinda busy. But, we’ll try to keep the general posts ticking along. This one is some fun, plus some history and a couple of puzzles.
One of the all-time great maths scenes is Abbott and Costello’s famous bit, where Lou Costello proves that 7 x 13 = 28:
Continue reading “NotCH 6: Not Abbott’s and Not Costello’s Mulsification”
NotCH 5: Ken Clements on a Very Young Terry Tao
Ken Clements is an interesting character, of whom and by whom we’ve been reading a lot of late. We plan to write about Clements in the near future, but for now we’ll just post an article by Clements on a really interesting character. Continue reading “NotCH 5: Ken Clements on a Very Young Terry Tao”
NotCH 4: Five Problems From Tony Gardiner
We have written about Tony Gardiner and excerpted from his writings a number of times: here, here, here, here and here. We will post an entire article by Tony in a day or so, but we are first posting the problems contained within the article. Unlike the “problem” here, the problems below are genuinely presented by Tony to puzzle over, and are only loosely tied to the text of the article. Have fun. Continue reading “NotCH 4: Five Problems From Tony Gardiner”
NotCH 3: The Love of Learning
It’s amazing the things one finds while scavenging.
NotCH 2: A Digits Puzzle
OK, hands up who thought there was ever gonna be a second NotCH?
We’re not really a puzzle sort of guy, and base ten puzzles in particular tend to bore us. So, this is unlikely to be a regular thing. Still, the following question came up in some non-puzzle reading (upon which we plan to post very soon), and it struck us as interesting, for a couple reasons. And, a request to you smart loudmouths who comment frequently:
Please don’t give the game away until non-regular commenters have had time to think and/or comment.
Start by writing out a few terms of the standard doubling sequence:
1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc. Continue reading “NotCH 2: A Digits Puzzle”
NotCH 1: Maths Masters Quizzes
More or less by accident, this post is the beginning of a new series: Not Crap Here.
A couple of people have suggested that we could occasionally include Dr. Jekyll material on this blog. You know, helpful stuff. It’s a decent idea, if our current thoughts weren’t so influenced by misanthropic disgust and murderous rage. Still, we’ve received two specific requests for the same old Jekyll material,* and which entailed some digging. Having finally dug, we’ve decided to post the material here, for whomever is interested. Whether or not there will ever be a NotCH 2 is anybody’s guess.