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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons™

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Early Childhood Education

Claremont Colleges

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Challenge-Based Learning & Steam Curriculum, Diana Lockwood Feb 2023

Challenge-Based Learning & Steam Curriculum, Diana Lockwood

The STEAM Journal

STEAM education is being integrated into elementary schools as a way to engage more students in creativity, hands-on learning, and problem-based learning also referred to as Challenge-Based-Learning (CBL). This article focuses on elementary educators’ curriculum design for STEAM and presenting students with open-ended questions phrased as a challenge as a way to raise student interest and achievement (DeJarnette, 2018; Hunter-Doniger, 2018). When students received challenges to solve, they felt more open to sharing their ideas since there was more than one potential right answer (DeJarnette, 2018; Drake, 2012). When implementing CBL, teachers act as facilitators using a constructivist approach as …

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Raise The (Proportion) Bar!, Michael Waters Jan 2021

Raise The (Proportion) Bar!, Michael Waters

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This article, drawing mainly on references to teacher preparation textbooks, proposes proportion bars as a somewhat novel graphical approach to solving simple (direct) proportion problems and to illustrate the advantages of such an approach, which include accessibility with materials at early grade levels, allowance of students to better develop number sense and estimation, facilitation of setting up proportions, allowance for conceptual understanding and motivation of the procedure for solving direct proportions, assistance with part-to-part and part-to whole comparisons, and drawing of connections among mathematical topics. The emphasis is on teaching with understanding, rather than procedural knowledge.

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On Not Teaching Addition: A Homeschooling Parent Teaches And Researches Math, Marion D. Cohen Jan 2020

On Not Teaching Addition: A Homeschooling Parent Teaches And Researches Math, Marion D. Cohen

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Interactions with the humans in one’s life can have bearings on the way one interacts with one’s work – and vice versa. In particular, the ways in which a math person who is also a parent interacts with their children can correlate with the ways that person interacts with students, colleagues, and with math itself. This article describes some of that correlation in one mathmom’s life. In particular, this mathmom worked toward balancing, both as a mom and as a teacher, her beliefs and feelings with societal mindsets and practices.

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Mathematics Out Of Nothing: Talking About Powerful Mathematical Ideas With Children, Matthew Oldridge Jul 2019

Mathematics Out Of Nothing: Talking About Powerful Mathematical Ideas With Children, Matthew Oldridge

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Parents and educators have powerful opportunities to introduce children to big mathematical ideas, when those ideas become necessary. Children are capable and curious. They don’t need to be sheltered from big mathematical ideas. Bring out mathematical ideas when kids are ready, or when they are needed. This article describes one such instance, when I helped my six-year-old son move beyond zero in the negative direction when subtracting.

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Can A Comprehensive Transition Plan To Barefoot Running Be The Solution To The Injury Epidemic In American Endurance Runners?, Michael A. Scarlett Jan 2018

Can A Comprehensive Transition Plan To Barefoot Running Be The Solution To The Injury Epidemic In American Endurance Runners?, Michael A. Scarlett

CMC Senior Theses

Fossils belonging to the genus Homo, dating as far back as two million years ago, exhibit uniquely efficient features suggesting that early humans had evolved to become exceptional endurance runners. Although they did not have the cushion or stability-control features provided in our modern day running shoes, our early human ancestors experienced far less of the running-related injuries we experience today. The injury rate has been estimated as high as 90% annually for Americans training for a marathon and as high as 79% annually for all American endurance runners. There is an injury epidemic in conventionally shod populations that …

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Extended Book Review: Really Big Numbers, By Richard Evan Schwartz; The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life Of Paul Erdös, By Deborah Heiligman; The Short Seller, By Elissa Brent Weissman, Gizem Karaali Aug 2015

Extended Book Review: Really Big Numbers, By Richard Evan Schwartz; The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life Of Paul Erdös, By Deborah Heiligman; The Short Seller, By Elissa Brent Weissman, Gizem Karaali

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The genre of math lit for children is not huge, but it is growing. My kid loves the early reader books by my friend and colleague Julie Glass (A Dollar for Penny (1998), The Fly On the Ceiling (2000)). I found Izolda Fotiyeva’s Math with Mom (2003) too late for my daughter but will definitely read it with my son. For a neat twist on the traditional alphabet book, I recommend The Technical Alphabet (2014) by the engineer sisters Lavanya and Melissa Jawaharlal. More recently a colleague introduced me to Laura Overdeck’s Bedtime Math series; these will soon join …

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