More from PME-NA in Reno, NV

The North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education, also known as PME-NA (#OleMissAtPME).  Tomorrow I present my poster Teaching Mathematics as Agape: Articulating an ideal relationship between students and mathematics.  I will be talking with those about what mathematics education can look like that is built on unconditional love.

Today Martin Simon offered his ideas on Learning Through Activity and how carefully constructed task sequences can get students to learning intended mathematics.  What sparked my interest was how Simon talked about the constructing of these sequences can allow all students to engage in generating solutions toward the intended concept.  Often in a reform classroom a novel problem is introduced where not all students are able to understand how to do the problem.  Then some students get opportunities to generate solutions and others just get opportunities to understand solutions.  But if these task sequences are being used then students can bring in their resources to get to the intended mathematics, thus allowing all students access to the cognitive demands of generating solutions.

It is amazing how I can see how each presentation that I attend can apply to my work.  This is a good conference.