I had a great time in Dallas this week at the Desmos Classroom Fellows Orientation! I'm excited to learn from ALL the amazing people from @Amplify and @desmosclassroom fellowship!
https://amplify.com/desmos-fellows
#Desmos #MathTeacherFellowship #ProfessionalGrowth #MathEd #STEMeducation #MathChat #iTeachMath
Came across Seymour Papert's "Teaching Children Thinking" essay:
https://citejournal.org/volume-5/issue-3-05/seminal-articles/teaching-children-thinking]
(thanks @ColinTheMathmo for the better link)
It captures almost exactly my philosophy of education, teaching, computing, and so on.
I want to quote so much of it! Here's just one:
"The purpose of this essay is to present a grander vision of an educational system in watch technology is used not in the form of
machines for processing children but as something the child himself will learn to manipulate, to extend, to apply to projects, thereby gaining a greater and more articulate mastery of the world, a sense of the power
of applied knowledge and a self-confidently realistic image of himself as an intellectual agent."
I'm surprised at how the article -- from 1971! -- describes so many of the programming-like things available today. So much of the play-oriented things we have now -- games like Robot Turtles, various robots that do path-following things -- are exactly what they were doing over half a century ago.
Mathematics Teaching 296 now available online https://atm.org.uk/Mathematics-Teaching-Journal-Archive/177731
Design and cover photographs by me
Four free articles for non-members:
Everyone can think mathematically by Tom Francome
Tom Francome explores ways of developing the mathematical thinking of all students, including low attainers.
https://atm.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/Journals/MT296/02.pdf
Book review Learning with AI by Ian Benson
Ian Benson reviews 'Learning with AI' by Joan Monahan Watson published by Johns Hopkins University Press (296 pages, $24.95)
https://atm.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/Journals/MT296/14.pdf
Book review Breaking images by Pete Wright
Pete Wright reviews ‘Breaking images: Iconoclastic analyses of mathematics and its education’, edited by Brian Greer, David Kollosche, and Ole Skovsmose.
https://atm.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/Journals/MT296/15.pdf
Ole Skovsmose—the man who put the critique in critical mathematics education by Peter Gates
Peter Gates has collated this obituary for Ole Skovmose.
https://atm.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/Journals/MT296/16.pdf
We've had some incredible results in our mathematical modeling program this year, The latest: A team of three of our high school students won the Mathematical Association of America award for their submission to the university-level Mathematical Contest in Modeling run by COMAP! They were one of 18 teams out of 12,000 worldwide to earn an "Outstanding" designation for their mathematical projection of Olympic medal counts for the 2028 games.
https://contest.comap.com/undergraduate/contests/mcm/contests/2025/results/index.html
Just got my author copies of Python for Mathematics! (https://www.routledge.com/Python-for-Mathematics/Knight/p/book/9781032582184)
The book flips the usual programming order—starting with powerful maths tools before diving into code.
The publishers worked with me to agree to keep an online version available too: https://vknight.org/pfm/cover.html (This version needs updating!)
You can find some of my thoughts on how the book is structured here: https://vknight.org/2025/05/19/python-for-mathematics-book.html
More updates soon. 
#Python #Math #Maths #Mathematics #Mathed
hey math teachers, here's some fraction bars with sliders
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/ipxuahpvfc
#mtbos #iteachmath #mathed
Grading math papers right now, and the most common feedback so far is "We do not set equations equal to each other".
Polydron special offer: Use code ATM10 for 10% off your Polydron order (offer ends 30 September 2025)
https://www.polydron.co.uk/shop.html
‘Exploring triangles at the Institute of Mathematics Pedagogy (IMP)’
Tandi Clausen-May reflects on an exploration of 3D shapes made from triangles.
https://atm.org.uk/write/MediaUploads/Journals/MT295/03.pdf
One of the two free articles from Mathematics Teaching 295 for non-members.
#geometry #triangle #helix #polydron #MathematicsTeaching #atm #MT #MT295 #iTeachMath #MathEd #Math #Education #mathematics
One of my beliefs as a high school #math teacher is that every course is a geometry course, which I guess is the opposite of what another teacher once told me: "Geometry is a crutch".
Combinatorics is not the easiest math to work with... unless it's done through low floor/high ceiling:
No one does that better than Brian Hopkins And he's written a book to prove it!
#mathed #mtbos
https://bookstore.ams.org/CLRM/74
Possibly useful for Valentine's Day: Katherine Pauer's "Cutting Out Hearts"
I've been thinking about this for ages, but never had the time to craft the words around it.
People keep saying that "Maths should be fun" ... and I push back with "It should be engaging ... 'fun' is a different thing.
So @rakhichawla has posted pretty much exactly this, but better than I ever could.
I'm copying it here with permission.
Please read this, then as it says at the end ... let's have a deeper conversation about this ...
1/n
(PS: I'd love this to get boosted to get outside my bubble ... you're all amazing, but there will be other opinions, and other thoughts that could be helpful or valuable)
Hashtags: #MathEd #MathsEd #MathEdChat #MathsEdChat #MathChat #MathsChat #MTBoS #TMWYK
Some time ago ... (A month!) ... there was a thread on Twitter that I think should be shared here. I've been trying to extract and post it semi-automatically, but Twitter just makes it damn near impossible.
So I'm copying it "by hand"
Here's a chart of the full conversation:
https://www.solipsys.co.uk/Chartter/1856750472826085652.svg
Here's the head of the conversation:
https://x.com/TweetingCynical/status/1856750459110986045
#MTBoS #TMWYK
#MathChat #MathsChat
#MathEd #MathEdChat
#MathsEd #MathsEdChat
I will occasionally update the chart of *this* conversation, and it will be here:
https://www.solipsys.co.uk/Chartodon/TeachingTellingTheTime.svg
Here is the content ...
People tell me my job is easy
You get summers off.
You only work nine months of the year.
You’re done at 3 pm.
You get paid to babysit.
Students at that school won’t succeed anyway, so you don’t have to do much.
Students at that school will succeed anyway, so you don’t have to do much.
Teaching advanced courses is easy. My students don’t even know the basics.
It must be easy to teach those students. Mine can’t handle that kind of work.
I wish I got to teach those students. Mine aren’t that engaged.
You just walk around asking questions. Your students are the ones doing everything.
I gave my geometry students some ChatGPT-generated "proofs" this week to review. There were several examples, each designed to illustrate a different point. One was a "proof" that the diagonals of a rectangle are congruent, which contained several errors. I was proud that several students immediately identified how dangerous it was: "It sounds like it is correct, until you look more closely at it."
