Math Circles Beyond the Page (and Screen)
Exploring Connections With Embodied Cognition, Storytelling, Improvisational Theater, and Social Justice
In this issue:
This spring’s issue of the Math Circular is full of novel approaches that will challenge your thinking of what a Math Circle can and should be.
In Hortensia Soto’s “Feeling the Angle Sum of a Triangle,” she introduces the concept of embodied learning in mathematics through a simple yet powerful example. Jason Ermer’s “Rethinking Story Problems to Engage Students’ Mathematical Curiosity” questions the often negative sentiments around story problems, examining the rich history behind such problems and introducing the Arithmetiquities, a compelling classroom adventure merging mathematics and narrative. Pedro Morales-Almazán offers a fresh take on active teaching and learning by reminding us that both are improvised performances (“The Art of Math Improv”). With their newly released book (“Book Launch: Social Justice Mathematics for Secondary Students”), the Math Teachers’ Circle 4 Social Justice provides compelling, classroom-tested lesson plans for bringing relevant social justice issues into Math Circles as well as classrooms.
Taken together, the articles are a wonderful illustration of how Math Circles can serve as a forum for exploring how math connects to other fundamentally human experiences and pursuits.
Our free resources at the Math Circle Network continue to grow. We invite you to connect with other Math Circle leaders and members through our brand-new Forum. We’ve also made a number of recent additions to our activity database, along with developing curated lists of starter activities for student circles and teacher circles.
We hope you enjoy our magazine and look forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely,
The Math Circle Network (circles@aimath.org)
P.S. Interested in writing for us? Please check out our Submissions page.
