Looking Forward...to the NCTM Annual Meeting!

The 2011 Annual Meeting of the NCTM is coming up in about three weeks, and it happens to be in Indianapolis, IN this year, about an hour from my home. 

I'm starting to get excited!  There are many things to look forward to including (but not limited to):

• the possibility of meeting Keith Devlin, NPR's Math Guy
• the possibility of meeting Scott Kim (one of the MathDance guys)

Both Keith and Scott are presenting.  Also:

• the possibility of meeting other really interesting people, still to be discovered but no less exciting
• the sheer volume of workshops on interesting arts connections to teaching math

And, last but not least:

• a chance to share my own work, and to give teachers some concrete experience with integrating percussive dance and elementary mathematics as well as tools and lesson plans that they can take right back to their classrooms after the conference is over!  And all in 90 minutes.  

You gonna' be there?

Featured NCTM Workshop!

Hey, check this out!  My workshop at the NCTM 2011 Annual Meeting and Exposition is featured in their promotion of hands-on workshops at the conference this coming April.  I see a few there I'd like to attend myself.  Maybe next year I can do one on tape as the ultimate math manipulative?  Big talk, I know, but I'm on a mission to prove my theory.

Will you be there?

Teachers: Be There and Be (in a) Square!

Are you going to the NCTM 2011 Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, IN in April? 

I'll be there, so let me know your plans!  My 90 minute hands-on workshop Math in Your Feet: Teaching Geometry through Rhythm and Movement is one of the 650 presentations offered.  I was excited to see that it's been included in their presentation sampling for the 3-5 grade band. 

Come even if you're just curious, but know that teachers can learn to do this too and many before you have successfully implemented Math in Your Feet programming in their own classrooms!  A few years ago I developed a two-part professional development series in association with Clowes Memorial Hall of Butler University and Young Audiences of Indiana.  As part of this process I participated in the Kennedy Center's Seminar, "Artists as Educators: Planning Effective Workshops for Teachers."  This six-hour professional development series presents Math in Your Feet as a sequential program of activities which anyone can teach, even if they don't wish to do much moving themselves. 

My hands-on NCTM workshop will present a portion of the Math in Your Feet program.  You will be engaged in an in-depth investigation of transformations using simple foot-based patterns.  In particular, we'll harness the power of kinesthetic learning for understanding reflection and rotation symmetries in 3-D, a process which I'm sure will bring you some exciting new insights on the subject.  In addition to the math content you will experience learning with and through the arts. 

Hope to see you there...in a square!