To LUGNET HomepageTo LUGNET News HomepageTo LUGNET Guide Homepage
 Help on Searching
 
Post new message to lugnet.eduOpen lugnet.edu in your NNTP NewsreaderTo LUGNET News Traffic PageSign In (Members)
 Education / 253
252  |  254
Subject: 
Lego Bricks in the Classroom
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.edu
Date: 
Wed, 29 Jun 2005 10:46:27 GMT
Highlighted: 
(details)
Viewed: 
6032 times
  
Last summer, I ran a Lego Geometry workshop at UU church camp. It totally rocked. When participants left the first day, they were saying things like, “Now I finally know what ratios are good for.” These are adults, mind you. It gave me such a charge to realize I had reached some folks who probably didn’t like mathematics that much. So I decided to bring Lego bricks onto campus; being an overworked public educator, I am finally posting last fall’s photos.

I proudly present installment I:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=134640 (when moderated)

You see photos from my first talk (a delightful train wreck), a few sessions from calculus II and modern geometry, and a bunch of model shots taken right before I took the surfaces apart. The measurement and Pythagorean theorem stuff didn’t photograph very well, but the surfaces--what would become my double integration lesson--look quite nice, if I may say so myself. Of course, I didn’t build any of this. My students did.

When a grad school colleague heard what I was doing, she insisted I come down to James Madison University and present there. Sadly, I have no photos from this event, which is a shame, because it was delightful--and not a train wreck at all.

The story continues into the winter and spring--but I’ll make you wait for those chapters.

A cursory search here turns up a few brave souls who have used Lego bricks in physics and engineering classrooms. Any Lego mathematicians out there? Make some noise!

-Professor Teddy



1 Message in This Thread:

Entire Thread on One Page:
Nested:  All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:  All | Brief | Compact
    

Custom Search

©2005 LUGNET. All rights reserved. - hosted by steinbruch.info GbR