Recently added articles from Australian Mathematics Teacher:
Editorial.
Dec 22, 2008; ... The Beijing Olympic Games are over! What spectacular opening and closing ceremonies! What performances! How many World and Olympic records were broken? What great stories we have heard--of hardship, endurance, perseverance, effort and attention to detail. What attitudes we have seen from ...
[pi]: the chronicle.
Dec 22, 2008; ... (circa) 3000 BC, Egypt [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The pyramids are built. The sides and heights of the pyramids of Cheops and of Sneferu at Gizeh are constructed in the ratio 11:7. Hence: 1/2 x perimeter/height = 22/7 = 3.142857 2000 BC, Egypt. The ...
That's Mathematics: a song by satirist and Harvard lecturer Tom Lehrer.(From Helen Prochazka's Scrapbook)(Poem)
Dec 22, 2008; ... <Pre> That's Mathematics A song by satirist and Harvard lecturer Tom Lehrer Counting sheepWhen you're trying to sleep,Being fairWhen there's something to share,Being neatWhen you're folding a sheet,That's mathematics!When a ball Bounces ...
A square around.
Dec 22, 2008; ... Paul Scott's article [pi] round and round in the recent edition of AMT provided a most valuable set of investigations dealing with the pi ratio and the circumference and area of circles. The activities emphasise relational, rather than instrumental learning. However, despite the best ...
Using spreadsheets to make algebra more accessible: Part 1: equations and functions.(Report)
Dec 22, 2008; ... Background Mathematics is not about answers, it is about processes! One of the more interesting views on this appears in a paper by Robert H. Lewis (2000) titled Mathematics--The Most Misunderstood Subject. He uses the following analogy: <Pre>When a new building is ...
"But what about the oneths?" A year 7 student's misconception about decimal place value.
Dec 22, 2008; ... [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Amy: Can you explain to me why you thought the place value of the 8 was tenths? Trissy: Well, because the 7 is in the oneths column, so the 8 must be in the tenths column. The "oneths" column? As revealed in the above ...
HOTmaths.(Reflections on Resources with Donna Miller)
Dec 22, 2008; ... HOTmaths Available via the Internet at http://www.hotmaths.com.au Pricing varies depending on use [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I am naturally suspicious of Web-based mathematics programs, particularly those that purport to be a "comprehensive ...
Conducting a mathematics camp for girls & other mathematics enthusiasts.
Dec 22, 2008; ... Throughout much of the world, boys continue to outscore girls on standardised mathematics tests. For example, in most of the 57 countries that participated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2006, boys' performance was significantly higher than girls on the ...
Crosswords--the make-it-yourself game.(Diversions)
Dec 22, 2008; ... Number of players Two or more players use pencil and paper and a 5 x 5 square grid. Playing Players take it in turns to call out any letter of the alphabet (as the game progresses, letters may be called more than once). When a letter is ...
The twelve days of Christmas.(Discovery)
Dec 22, 2008; ... We are all familiar with the Christmas carol which starts with <Pre>On the first day of Christmasmy true love gave to meA partridge in a pear tree. On the second day of Christmasmy true love gave to meTwo turtle dovesAnd a partridge in a pear ...
More or less eccentric.(CACTUS)
Dec 22, 2008; ... Previously in CACTUS we considered simple constructions to study the reflective property of a parabola and of a paraboloid. The purpose was to help middle school students understand the importance of the parabola shape and its ability to focus parallel rays. The examples demonstrated a use ...
Building informal inference with TinkerPlots in a measurement context.(Report)
Dec 22, 2008; ... Several issues surround the continuing implementation of the Chance and Data component of the mathematics curriculum in Australia. First is its survival. Second is the question of how far toward formal inference should the curriculum take students (assuming it survives). Third is what ...
Editorial.
Sep 22, 2008; ... I come from a long-line of low-tech folk: my grandfather, a master bricklayer, had to construct with straight edge and compass, and then build all the frameworks for the arches he built around Sydney; my father, a navigator in the navy, used a parallel ruler and set square (oh, and log ...
Letter to the editors.
Sep 22, 2008; ... Given that our subject grew out of the need people felt to answer questions such as, "How many ... ?", "How much ... ?" and "How far ... ?", it is a measure of how it has been perverted when it is necessary for us to have a serious discussion on how to make it relevant--for example, as in ...
[pi]Re-count and recall.
Sep 22, 2008; ... The number [pi] This year we have been investigating the number [pi] [approximately equal to] 3.14159, defined to be the ratio C/d of the circumference C to the diameter d of any given circle. Here we look at another of those surprising and unexpected places where ...
The ubiquitous parabola.(CACTUS)
Sep 22, 2008; ... Every so often someone who once suffered a poor learning experience, challenges the inclusion of key topics in the curriculum. When an author and a British politician both questioned the teaching of quadratic equations the AAMT email list members responded admirably. The list provides a ...
Proportion in middle-school mathematics: it's everywhere.
Sep 22, 2008; ... Proportional thinking is the mathematical basis of a wide range of topics in the middle-school mathematics curriculum. While the concept is obvious in the traditionally-named ratio and proportion sections, proportional thinking is also the key to such diverse topics as rate, gradient of a ...
Conjecture activities for comprehending statistics terms through speculations on the functions of imaginary spectrometers.(Report)
Sep 22, 2008; ... Introduction The purpose of this study was to describe students' problem solving performance when they make conjectures to comprehend three statistics terms. Teachers are key figures in changing the ways in which mathematics is taught and learned in schools. Mathematics teachers ...
What is mathematics?(From Helen Prochazka's Scrapbook)
Sep 22, 2008; ... The Mathematics Subject Classification (MSC) was developed by the American Mathematical Society and Zentralblatt fur Mathematik in Germany. It is used to categorise items covered by the two reviewing databases, Mathematical Reviews (MR) and Zentralblatt Math (Zbl). The MSC is broken down ...
A lot of ones.(DISCOVERY)(number one)
Sep 22, 2008; ... The symbol 1 for "one" seems to have been used in many languages for more than 5000 years. The ancient Egyptians cut it into stone and painted it on some of their pottery. Other ancient civilisations also used this numeral, which is thought to have been derived from the lifted finger, a ...