mathematics

The Real Purpose of Math Is …

by Jose 04.21.2010

Anyone who’s ever had to fill in this blank understands my pain: “The real purpose of learning math is _____” I have a variety of answers, but usually, it’s straight-forward: much of the math you learn is applied to real-life situations, and the ability to do it yourself with no need for a calculator makes [...]

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Whenever You Get Those Moments, You Blog About Them

by Jose 02.23.2010

This morning, Bill Ferriter on Twitter ranted a bit about an e-mail from a disgruntled hater who called his blogging an exercise in self-fellaciating (if that’s even a word). Naturally, Bill was quick to distinguish between those who believe that their blogging not only becomes a central part of the reflective process for their practice [...]

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Time May Change Me, But I Can’t Trace Time [An Explanation of Slope]

by Jose 02.09.2010

For those who’d like a very fundamental and rudimentary explanation for slope and how to understand it as a function of two given variables, (and naturally, a correlation between that and real life), imagine the following: Start walking for a good minute. Pick up the pace for another minute. Stop for a minute. Walk backwards [...]

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Abstracting the Concrete

by Jose 02.20.2008

Last week in the classroom, I started dreading the idea of the two worst words for any regular teacher in this country: test prep. I hate it because it’s a contrived barometer of what they’ve truly learned, and en masse, becomes the data for metrics used to evaluate student progress, teacher competency, school preparedness, and [...]

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