MATH 170 PROJECT OPTIONS as of 9/30

I Tutoring, through the Pipeline Project or through your own connections:

Ideal scenario: you connect with a school by week 3 and go there 2 hours a week for the rest of the quarter. You work on mathematics with a few students and continue to see the same students throughout the quarter.

Actually, this is probably better described as Utopian than ideal. There will be weeks when the students are off on a field trip, or have an assembly, or… Still, that is what you should aim for. If at all possible, spend part of the time on mathematical games (I’ll help you look for them if you need me to). Part you will presumably spend on homework.

The most specific requirement is that you keep a journal. Write a page or two each time about what you planned, what you observed and what you have learned about how your students do or do not learn mathematics. I hope to read the journal at least once during the quarter, and will certainly do so at the end. The journal must be turned in for you to get credit for the tutoring as a project.

As a final entry in your journal, please include a short discussion of what you think your student(s) have learned from working with you, and what you have learned from the experience. Did your ideas about mathematics or about teaching change? Also discuss if and how Math 170 influenced your tutoring. Probably many things you did in tutoring are the same as you would have done before taking this class; what (if anything) was different?

II Math Fair: Sometime in November, there will be a Math Fair at some Central District school. A Math Fair is an evening at the school where families come and play math games. In preparation for the Fair, we go out four times and spend an afternoon in the classrooms teaching the children to play the games and to strategize for them, and then how to teach them to their families. The preparation times will be either four Tuesday afternoons or four Thursday afternoons, roughly 12:35 – 3:20. There will be a van to take folks to the school and back.

Negotiations are underway to choose a school and set up dates. I am hoping they will be completed by the week-end. I will post the dates on the website as soon as they are determined.

To do Math Fair as a project, you need to get to at least 4 of the 5 times we are at the school (prep times + the Fair itself) and write a brief reflection on the experience thereafter.

III Reading, discussing and reporting on What’s Math Got To Do With It? by Jo Boaler. You can buy it for $24.95 from the University Bookstore or $16.47 from Amazon (and if you order two copies you get free shipping.) This is a delightful book by a preeminent mathematics education researcher that manages to convey in a very easy-to-read form the essentials of what’s going on in K-12 mathematics education.

The format for discussion and reporting will depend on how many of you choose this option.