Summer of Math Exposition #4
Teachers, I'd love to hear from you
We'll be doing it again this year!
One of the great joys of the Summer of Math Exposition is that through the peer review process, we have a flood of activity for a few weeks of the year that helps new creators gain exposure, and allows those of us in the community to see new topics and perspectives we may not have otherwise come across. A risk, however, is that the entries which is most rewarded are lessons that appeal to those already very passionate about math, at least enough so to voluntarily join the peer review.
Given how many students in the world struggle with math, I would love to be able to re-direct the enormous amount of creative energy that goes into all these entries, if only slightly, to encourage people to choose topics not just based on what fellow math-nerds will love, but based on what will be most helpful. To do this, in giving out cash prizes to 5 entries this year, I’ll be placing heavy weight on whether teachers of the relevant subject believe the entry would be helpful to their students.
So, if you’re a math teacher of any kind, I would love to hear what specific topics you think deserve better online coverage. What is especially hard to explain to students? Where would visualizations or better narratives be especially useful? What have you searched for where the results you got left you disappointed? Feel free to discuss on this Reddit post.
Also, if you are a math teacher and you think you might be interested in helping provide feedback to this year’s entries, it would help me greatly if you took 60 seconds to fill out this form and let me know: https://forms.gle/jVssKAifNs3kdE9o9
This is awesome — I’m super excited to see what this year brings!
I have a quick question: as someone who has personally benefited from SoME videos, I was wondering if there’s any chance the competition could be expanded to include non-English content as well?
I’d love to participate, but I have a long-standing commitment to delivering serious math content in Arabic — something that’s still unfortunately lacking.
Thank you so much! 😊
Grant,
Your material is always thought provoking and positively stimulating. Hope you've enjoyed a great "leave." Retired from middle school math instruction 21 years ago. My favorite 'grabber' was "the Averaging Card Deck" which only required creating cards that looked like the 6 1/2 ( OR 6.5)of clubs. Great intro to fractions or decimal numbering. Also leads to probability. Creating student buy-in is essential. (Also Instructor's.)