One thing that I think math education does horribly at is having students work from the specific to the general. When we teach functions, we say f(x) = x^2, now tell me what f(1), f(3), f(7) are. What we don't do nearly often enough is work in the other direction.
I think a great activity with kids learning pre-algebra/algebra is to show them patterns and ask them to figure out formulas. This works incredibly well with a language like Racket where they can set up the test cases, play in the interactions window, and try functions in the definitions until the test cases check. And these don't have to be that complicated: #1 0->1, 2->3, 5->6 #2 1->2, 3->6, 4->8, 5->10 #3 0->1, 1->2, 2->4, 3->8 For students who find this easy, see if they can find another function that produces the given values, but is different than the first they came up with for some other value that wasn't specified. (Easy in some cases--not so much in others.) Those are just ideas. But before you do anything, make sure that students know their addition and multiplication tables up to 10, and have a basic understanding of what it means to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions. Without number sense, higher levels of math are far more painful than they should be. Todd On Sat, Oct 12, 2013 at 10:55 AM, Grant Rettke <gret...@acm.org> wrote: > To elaborate, I'm curious about how the lessons-learned in the after-school > version of Bootstrap could be turned into something that all educational > programs could use as part of the typical year-long curriculum and what > Bootstrap-ers even think of this idea. > > > On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 3:11 PM, Shriram Krishnamurthi <s...@cs.brown.edu> > wrote: >> >> Grant, what do you mean by "government sanctioned"? And why are you >> asking? >> >> On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 2:38 PM, Grant Rettke <gret...@acm.org> wrote: >> > Hi, >> > >> > Anyone used Racket or Bootstrap for a government sanctioned K-12 >> > educational program? >> > >> > Best wishes, >> > >> > -- >> > Grant Rettke | ACM, AMA, COG, IEEE >> > gret...@acm.org | http://www.wisdomandwonder.com/ >> > "Wisdom begins in wonder." --Socrates >> > ((λ (x) (x x)) (λ (x) (x x))) >> > "Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop >> > taking it seriously." --Thompson >> > >> > ____________________ >> > Racket Users list: >> > http://lists.racket-lang.org/users > > > > > -- > Grant Rettke | ACM, AMA, COG, IEEE > gret...@acm.org | http://www.wisdomandwonder.com/ > "Wisdom begins in wonder." --Socrates > ((λ (x) (x x)) (λ (x) (x x))) > "Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop taking > it seriously." --Thompson > > ____________________ > Racket Users list: > http://lists.racket-lang.org/users > ____________________ Racket Users list: http://lists.racket-lang.org/users
