Math Project- Quadratic Equations

Use Alice or Scratch programs to design “Finding the solutions of Quadratic Equations” 

It's Thursday already, wow it flying by -- Tom Cortina provided a most interesting and engaging experience with the group, it's fun watching people "be" a binary digit (bit), and binary birthday cake, and even a parallel sorting exercise outside (the weather really cooperated) -- I get the sense that people might be able to incorporate CS Unplugged exercises into their classes, albeit indirectly.

CSESI does go by fast, so take notes (or post to a blog .. like this :-).

I just had a nice meal with my friend and WED presenter Tom Cortina of CMU, this after a great day with Monisha, Nikill and Scratch, you can check out the online demos at the Scratch website.

Monday went even faster, Paul worked on getting teachers to at least be skeptical of what they perceive, and Dora lived up to the "Drinking from the firehose" analogy, presenting many videos and examples of Information Science Applications onlline.

see all in the am.

An interesting conversation has broken out, at several different places on Serendip and beyond, among (so far) two scientists, three humanists, and several college students of whom at least one has yet to declare an identity. Among the things that make it interesting, to me at least, is that it isn't actually about the two cultures per se (see also Two Cultures or One?), but rather about experiences teaching and learning in different contexts - with the intriguing suggestion that humanists might have something to learn in this regard from scientists and vice versa.

Well, another year has passed, and we return to Haverford to again engage is activities and discussion (and two meals a day!) to explore the use of computing and the role of computing in K-12 education, especially but not limited to the sciences.

 Last year I literally blurted out the title "Virtual Thinking," and it stuck to the point that many look at this year's workshop as VT2 -- however, I am hoping to suggest a more meaningful title, especially looking at the topics, so I am hoping to start a (long and deep) conversation about the use of reflection in conjunction with some activity/exercise to "induce" (produce?) learning.

Disclaimer: This is an exact replica of one of my final projects for my 220 Math and Science Pedagogy course last semester, which is a lesson plan I devised for a science class. I have offered to post it up on serendip and decided not to make any alterations to it as of yet. For my hope is, after my participation in the summer institute this year under Professor Grobstein, I will return to this lesson plan and make an much more profound change for its betterment. Please feel free to read this, critique it, and look forward to my second take on it at the end of this summer. Thank you.

Luisana Taveras
May 15th, 2008
Math and Science Pedagogies

Lesson Plan