Please help us build a useful collection
of links for Mathematics and Mathematics Teaching. If you know of a
link that would be useful for other teachers, please email us with the
address (http://...) and a short description at
frostj@u.washington.edu. Thanks for your help.
Mathforum was started at Swarthmore in 1992 and moved to Drexel
University in 2001. It has grown from a few energetic teachers and
technology buffs to a funded organization supported by Drexel
University, the Mathematics Association of America, the National
Science Foundation, and a host of foundations and corporations. The
Forum has a wealth of resources for teachers, students, and math
enthusiasts. It has been named one of the 10 best websites for
mathematics by a variety of reviewers. Materials from the Problem of
the Week and the Ask Dr. Math features are now published as books,
available on the website or at brick-and-mortar bookstores. I attended
a session at the 2006 NCTM conference in Atlanta given by a professor
from Texas who published on the Mathforum about the science of drag
racing.
Encyclopedias:
Instead of spending time in research libraries, teachers and students
can now retrieve information on practically any topic from the web.
Some of my favorite websites for getting a quick refresher are
www.mathforum.org,
en.wikipedia.org, and
mathworld.wolfram.com. Unlike
a search in google or bing, I can count on pages at those sites to have
been written by someone who understands the topic and can trust that
links from those pages will not take students to places I would have a
hard time explaining to parents.
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia with an amazing collection of
articles. The quality of the pages can be a bit more hit or miss than
at the other two sites, in part because it relies on volunteers to
write and edit the articles. Like any general purpose encyclopedia,
there are articles that may not be suitable for children, though not in
mathematics. The sheer breadth of coverage is astonishing.
Mathworld by Wolfram.com sets the bar for coverage of topics about
mathematics. The articles are mostly written by mathematicians and are
often shorter than I would like. I find the use of symbols and
precision of description are very helpful when I am trying to recall
the details of a topic.
Good websites are a nice convenience, but when I want to learn
about a
topic new to me, I’m still most likely to visit the Math Library in
Padelford Hall on the UW campus. With two floors of books on a
wide variety of mathematical topics and helpful librarians, it is the
best place I know of for in-depth study. I often find that comparing
what two or three authors say on a point helps me understand something
much better.
Articles mentioned in the PSCTM Newsletter:
Traci Ostrick's 2009 NCTM Presentation, "Adventures in Elementary Math
Coaching"
Jill Britton's collection of links to activities to accompany her book
"Investigating Patterns: Symmetry and Tessellations"
Jill Britton's collection of links to activities to accompany her book
"Investigating Patterns: Polyhedra Pastimes"
Kara Jackson's August 2012 article in NCTM's Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, "Launching Complex Tasks"
Jordan Ellenburg's articles in Slate Magazine, including one on Bounded Primes
Professional Development Sites:
Northwest
Mathematics Interaction is an outreach for the Park City Math Institute and offers Saturday workshops three times per
year at local schools. The topics are a mix of mathematics
content and teaching technique, with an emphasis on secondary
topics.
Training and Education
Julia
Price of The Simple Dollar, a syndicated website dedicated to personal
finance topics, offerred this link for a review of the best online
Master's Programs