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8 Feb, 6 tweets, 3 min read
In an hour, I'll meet my students in Math Explorations, a course we teach in an inquiry-based format. I LOVE this class! But like all teachers, I'm feeling the usual first-day jitters. To calm myself, I'm re-reading "The art of asking good questions": artofmathematics.org/blogs/vecke/th…
The course materials are available at the website for the wonderful "Discovering the Art of Mathematics" project artofmathematics.org. They offer 11 free books on fascinating topics like math and music, patterns, dance, games and puzzles, knots, infinity, etc. A real feast!
The website also includes videos of inquiry-based classes in action, reflections by teachers and students, and lots of pedagogical ideas. My own reflections from the first time I taught the course are at artofmathematics.org/blogs/cvonrene… and artofmathematics.org/blogs/cvonrene…
This year, our Math Explorations course is going to be unusual, because of the challenges and opportunities of trying to inquiry-based learning ONLINE. For thoughts and advice on that, see

artofmathematics.org/blogs/vecke/te…
artofmathematics.org/blogs/cvonrene…
And to everyone on their first day of class at @Cornell, Go Big Red!
In my Math Explorations class today, I had the students do a "gallery walk" (using Google Jamboard frames as virtual whiteboards). It occurred to me that virtual whiteboards could have an advantage over real ones: students can answer questions by posting memes. And they did!

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More from @stevenstrogatz

Steven Strogatz Profile picture
10 Dec 20
My kids know I see math everywhere. One of them made this series of photos of Murray to amuse me (or maybe to tease me). (1/4) Image
(2/4) Image
(3/4) Image
Read 4 tweets
Steven Strogatz Profile picture
2 Sep 20
Today was my first day of class, and I zoomed with the 200+ students in my "multivariable calculus for engineers" course. We had an unexpectedly wonderful session, super interactive. As you can see, I'm still on a high from it! And I want to share what worked so well... 1/n
I was really anxious about this first class, and about how dead it would be on Zoom, but somehow by making it warm and fun, the class and I established a rapport. Most of them are freshmen and very apprehensive. This warm welcome to @Cornell seems to have been the right call. 2/n
I got there a half hour early and chatted with the students who were already there. We talked about lots of things (including my dog). Just chillin... 3/n
Read 17 tweets
Steven Strogatz Profile picture
25 Aug 20
An interesting approach to calculus. Instead of using the limit-based definition of continuity, Olver defines a function to be continuous if the inverse image of every open set is open (as in topology). He says this is both more rigorous and more understandable for beginners.
You can check out Olver’s approach here [PDF]: www-users.math.umn.edu/~olver/ln_/cc.… (ht @academath)
Peter Olver’s home page is chock full of links to his books and lecture notes on variety of topics in mathematics. Lots of pedagogical treasures there. www-users.math.umn.edu/~olver/
Read 5 tweets
Steven Strogatz Profile picture
27 Jul 20
Regarding my earlier tweet about eigenvectors, some of you have asked for more explanation about page rank. Here’s a chapter from “The Joy of x“ where I tried to do that. 1/5
2/5
3/5
Read 7 tweets
Steven Strogatz Profile picture
4 Feb 20
Jo Boaler just showed me what a typical Japanese textbook looks like. Check out the thickness… Not!
In the next series of tweets, I’ll show you just how much thinking is expected from students. I love how conceptual and interesting these textbooks are. And this is for fifth grade!
Notice they are suggesting different ways to solve the same problem. Just like real mathematicians do
Read 6 tweets
Steven Strogatz Profile picture
13 Oct 19
I've long worried about this, and it is starting to happen: Some students aren't sure which way is "clockwise" anymore. (The screenshot below is from a student's answer on a test I just gave, in which the word "counterclockwise" was used.) #DeathOfAnalog
Just to clarify, since some people in the thread below found my tweet confusing: The image shown in the tweet is not the answer to a test question; it’s a mnemonic diagram that a student drew to help himself or herself remember which way is counterclockwise.
The mnemonic is drawn correctly (obviously!) and I have no objection to that. Nor do I have any objection to students using mnemonics; they can be helpful, especially during the stress of a test. What I found amazing was that the student felt the need to draw such a mnemonic.
Read 5 tweets

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