Category Archives: OpenLab Assignments

Videos- Latina

“Fruit by the Foot”- Shows the math potential of the candy and how it relates to a mobius stripe.

“Snowflake Symmetry” – This video shows the different geographical ways to make a snowflake depending on the number of symmetry.

“Fractal Fractions”- This video shows an infinite possibilities to add a number by turning it into a fraction and then turning these fraction even smaller fraction, and when added together it equals the same number.

Part 2- I must say all these videos are pretty interesting.  When I first watched the (Fractal Fractions video I was pretty confused. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but then after watching it a couple times I thought that it was a cool trick. I never thought to breakup numbers that way or that it was possible to do it that way.

Part 3- This video showed me that math isn’t just about learning procedures you can have fun with it. As a teacher it is important to show your students that they can come up with their own ideas and think outside the box. When they do they can find new and interesting ways to look at a problem. This is very relevant to what we are learning in the classroom, because in the class we are learning and proving why things are the way they are. To do this you must be able to think outside the box and not be so rigid in our thinking. Both Lockhart’s Lament and Vi Hart are showing new ways of looking and teaching math. Math is a creative subject and should to taught that way.

 

Videos – Farjana Shati

Part 1:

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahXIMUkSXX0&feature=youtu.be


“Doodling in Math: Spirals, Fibonacci, and Being a Plant [1 of 3]”  this video talks about how spirals and Fibonacci are used in nature like in plants.

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIVIegSt81k&list=UUOGeU-1Fig3rrDjhm9Zs_wg


“Hexaflexagons” this video is based on a true story and shows when you flex a hexagon it turns to hexaflexagon.

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK5Z709J2eo&list=UUOGeU-1Fig3rrDjhm9Zs_wg


“Doodling in Math Class: Infinity Elephants” this video talks about infinite series and explains with pretty nicely examples.

Part 2 &3:

These videos were very interesting to watch even though she talks really fast. After watching these videos i felt very inspired and excited because i always knew that math is creative and did not thought that it can be taught in a creative way like this. One thing i learned after watching her videos was that math can be expressed and taught in more fun ways than i thought even though i knew that but seeing her as an example opened my eyes.

Watching her videos inspired more in teaching than math because it made curious of how she came up this idea of doodling in math can made you understand math more creatively and it inspires me to think that it will be my responsibilities to teach students math in a more fun and creative way when i became a teacher. I think there is a connection to last week’s assignment  Lockhart’s Lament because math is an art and these videos shows as an example how math can be taught creatively.

 

 

 

 

 

Videos – Marina Felamon

  1. “Doodling in Math class: stars “…… this video is about drawing stars by putting any numbers of Points and trying to connect these points together to get a star, and that the more points you put, the more different ways you can draw a star. And the way she did that was by drawing “p” points in a circle evenly spaced and then picking a number “ q” and starting at one point and go around the circle to connect the points until you get your star.

“Doodling in math class: Squiggle Inception” …. This video is about making squiggles out of squiggle until she filled out the whole page and it can be extended infinitely.

“Doodling in Math Class: Triangle Party”…. This video is about drawing triangles and that everything is made of triangle. The essence of two dimensionality, the three points that define a plane, they are just made up of triangles.

“Doodling in Math class Infinity elephants”…  This video is about drawing any shape you like and start filling it with circles all over until the whole shape if filled.

 

2. These videos are wonderful. The video ““Doodling in Math class Infinity elephants” was very interesting to watch.  I was totally confused watching this video because she talked really fast but ,  I was also so surprised of how can she make this great connection between her doodles and math. I was really inspired of how creative and smart she is . I learned a lot of things from watching this video, but one of the most important things that I learned is that math isn’t about memorizing formulas and following steps. we could be very creative in math by inventing new ideas that will make it more fun and more easy. the question that I have after watching the video is how did she come up with all these ideas because this was inspiring to me.

3. I think this video was inspiring to me. It had a great connection with math from the way she draws the shapes to filling them with circles. I think it is also very relevant to the work that I do in some of my classes. Sometimes when I do not understand something in any of my classes I start doodling by drawing flowers or hearts all over the page but I never thought that some of these drawing could have a connection to math. I also think there is a huge connection between Vi-Hart and Lockhart’s Lament because they both have the same ideas in different ways. Lament thinks math is not about memorizing and following formulas , it is about creating your own formula , which is the same idea as Vi- Hart, she created her own way of math by doodling .

Videos- SIN-FONG CHIU

Videos- SIN-FONG CHIU

Oh No, Pi Politics Again

 

In video, I feel sorryabout the copyright of the pi song. If I sing someone’s song, I will against to the copyright? People said Chinese sounds like music because there are four different tone, and music have at least seven tone. Putting music into mathematic that is amazing thing I have heard.

Doodling in Math Class: Binary Trees

I recently made a fun little fractal-producing game similar to that where one side of the “branch” so to speak was a quarter-circle; I made various rules for what occurs when the bottom of the circle ran into a straight line (or another bottom half of a circle) and it ended up drawing some interesting shapes. It never seemed to grow a definite pattern though, but this video reignited my desire to figure out just what that pattern was.

Hexaflexagons 2

In this video named “Hexaflexagons”, the girl shows how to make a normal hexaflexagon, with three different colored faces, The one with six different colored faces is shown in the video and forward. Also, a three-sided hexaflexagon is made of 9 triangles plus an optional for gluing. Because each colored side is made of 6 triangles. There are three different colors. 6 times 3 is 18. I use both sides of the paper. 18 divided by 2 is 9.

It was an absolute inspiration. The songs were hilarious. It made me rethink creativity and expressions and meaning. Mathematic can represent in different way. She spoke fast, I replay the video at least twice. She spoke fast. Why she need to speak that fast? I replay the video at least twice

she called herself Vi Hart, Mathemusician. If number can represent in to melody, it will represent in to anything else. Regarding of the video called flexagon, I think it is math. Because the definition of mathematics is the study of topics such as quantity, structure, space, and change. Two topics (structure and change) are involved in the making of a flexdagon. Therefore I consider it as a type of mathematics. The way she teaches is also amazing. It will not only make students have a better understanding of Diagrams, but also inspire students in the entry level of geometry. I may not do this when I teach in the classroom. But I will try to explain more in details of the concept by providing such arts tool sometime after the class, maybe during my office hours.it is connection to last Lockhart’s Lament

Videos- Victor Lee

Doodling in Math: Spirals, Fibonacci, and Being a Plant (Three Part Series)

I chose this video because it seemed pretty relevant with our recent introduction to Strong Induction and Fibonacci Numbers. It serves as an introduction to Fibonacci Numbers and the Fibonacci Spiral and their appearances in various organisms, with particular focus on plants whose names start with “pine-“. It was interesting seeing how the number of spirals in certain plants exist in more than one direction (and in Fibonacci numbers no less). So are there any plants that violate the sanctity of this pattern?

Phi is the most irrational number? An interesting correlation between ratios of the larger over the smaller of two consecutive Fibonacci numbers exists. But, wait a contradiction arises?

Something wrong happened at the start and now we have a new type of sequence. It’s not quite a Fibonacci Sequence but very close; introducing Lucas Numbers. Also, here are instances where plants break apart from Fibonacci sequences. Okay, that answered my question.

Are these videos relevant to the teaching I will be doing? While it is interesting to learn on our own, there is an issue where the students will not likely come across these sequences within the curriculum unless I choose to assign them some sort of project. That being said, my attention was kept, and I was borderline captivated with the presentation. There was visual evidence to prove the concepts scientifically and and additional artistic diagrams to better represent these observations. These videos are also demonstrations into how math exists outside of the textbooks, notebooks, and chalkboards as well as how we can discover and apply new knowledge. This is most certainly teaching math and I’d like to believe I have a greater understanding of Fibonacci numbers through these demonstrations.

Is there a connection between these videos and Paul Lockhart’s Lament? I could imagine so. If Lockhart wishes to expose the soul of math to students, I would go so far as to say that Vi Hart does so with these videos.  She most certainly presents math in an artistic method that is seemingly fun and engaging and it’s pretty clear she’s enjoying making these videos. The only issue I might have is how would students react to seeing such a demonstration in their classrooms? Feedback is a pretty important assessment tool and I know firsthand that a comments section on the Internet is not the best place to garner such information.

Videos- Rushdha Rafeek

1.

The title of this video is “Hexaflexagons.” In this video Vi-hart talks about how a student named Arthur.H.Stone discovered and invented hexaflexagons with strips of papers. She cuts-off ends of the paper that could not fit in her English binder and then folds those strips of papers to create different shapes such as hexagons. Each time they were folded in a certain way it revealed more than two faces or sides creating a flexagon.

Title- “Doodling in Math: Sick Number Games” In this video Vi-hart she writes down numbers in order and arranges them in spirals known as ulam spiral to find out patterns prime numbers can make. She also doodles around to find patterns in pascals triangle by using this number game and highlighting prime numbers to create a picture with different sizes of triangles.

Title- “Doodling in Math: Stars” This is a great video to learn to draw many pointed stars in many different ways. She basically shows how factoring numbers are found in real world such as in stars.

Title- “Doodling in Math: Spirals, Fibonacci, and Being a Plant [1 of 3]”  This video is about how Fibonacci numbers are found in living things such as plants and other things. She practically experiments on plants to show how Fibonacci numbers exists in spirals and many other geometric drawings.

2. These videos are simply amazing! I am definitely inspired how Vi-hart makes great connections to math with her “doodle stuff” She was very creative in her drawings in the videos that made me wonder how artistic and yet clever enough to relate every single thing to math in some way. One thing I learnt is that she appreciated math more than I did and in some sense she made great attempts to prove the math facts herself by experimenting on real world materials instead of simply relying to the things she is taught in class. For example discovering the Fibonacci sequence in spirals of pine cones, pineapples, flowers and many others. And one question I like to know is if she came up with a math story every time she doodled in a math class?

3. I really enjoyed watching these videos. Vi-hart has a unique approach to math by making connections to real word applications. I also learnt a lot from “Spirals, Fibonacci and being a plant” video. I think the way she demonstrated on the flowers and other things to describe the Fibonacci numbers were very beneficial. And not only that she made math seem very unique and an enjoyable subject, and quite often math is not observed this way in a classroom because it’s mostly taught in a very boring way by spoon feeding facts to students where they don’t have the opportunity to be inspired with the mathematical concepts. I found this video also relevant to what is being taught in class especially with the Fibonacci numbers and its unique properties. She also shows how math is an art as described in the reading “Lock hart’s Lament” and uses her creative imaginations in her explorations. I honestly wish I was taught this way back in school.

Videos–> Sidney Sao

Part 1

1)Title: Scary Sirepinski Skull Time

Description: Vi Hart was showing us how you can make triangles out of triangle candy corns. She basically Showed that there where infinite number of triangles in a triangle.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8ZWlUamNPI&list=UUOGeU-1Fig3rrDjhm9Zs_wg

2)Title: Doodling in Math: Sick Number Games

Descriptions: In this video, she talks about prime numbers, Pascal’s Triangle, and Floyd’s Triangle.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhlv5Aeuo_k&list=UUOGeU-1Fig3rrDjhm9Zs_wg&spfreload=1

3)Title: Doodling in Math: Spirals, Fibonacci, and being a plant [1 of 3]

Descriptions: She discusses the Fibonacci series and show us how to find the numbers in the series (starting with 1 add 1 and than add the previous number number to the first number to get the next number). After than she show us how the Fibonacci numbers are in everything with spikes, such as, flowers, pineapples, acorns, and etc.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahXIMUkSXX0&list=UUOGeU-1Fig3rrDjhm9Zs_wgPart 2

Part 2

Chosen Video: Doodling in Math: Sick Number Games

I watched some of her other videos, and I found them them to be pretty annoying because she talks really fast and make a bunch of weird/annoying sounds. Despite that, this was the only video I liked. I found it really interesting because she talked about prime number. To be honest, I don’t really know what’s the point of knowing that a number is prime. What’s the purpose of prime numbers? She also talked about the largest prime number, (2^43,112,609)-1, and how the guy who came up with this number was rewarded $100,000. One thing that I found funny and interesting was that scientist sent the largest prime number to space in an attempt to communicate with aliens. Also I liked the statement, “mathematics is one of the only thing all life have in common.” I also liked how she showed a different way of viewing the Fibonacci’s Triangle. When you circle all the odd numbers in Fibonacci’s Triangle, you get sierpinski’s triangle. After that, she divides all the numbers in Fibonacci’s Triangle by three, and colors in all the numbers with remainder 0, 1, and 2 with different colors (R0[red], R1[black] and R3[Green]); she comes up with a set of rules (ex: black+black= Green). One thing I learned from this video, is that when you draw the Ulam’s spiral all the prime numbers connect in a diagonal. One question I have, If I find a prime number greater than the largest prime number do I too get a reward? 🙂

Part 3 

I think this video teaches us about some things in math because she’s show you steps to find certain numbers through the use of Fibonacci’s Triangle and etc. This video is telling me that when I teach I should encourage my students to do what Mr. Reitz does, think about the process of solving problems because it can open up to new math ideas. theorems, and etc. I believe this work is relevant to the work we are doing in class because we use the Triangles mentioned earlier and discussed a little bit about prime numbers and how there’s no formula for a prime number, yet. I don’t think it relates to Lockheart’s lament. Overall, I like how this video shows you how you can view things in different ways.

Videos- Leonardo Perez

part 1)

this video talked about arranging  snake fragments into desired shape or length.

this video was interesting it talked about the Pythagorean theorem and the life of  Pythagoras.

 

this was a funny video but it talked it about how kids are given the wrong information about some mathematical concepts, like the Fibonacci sequence she says that spongebob’s pineapple house is not really a pineapple because  it doesn’t follow the Fibonacci sequence.

part 2)

the video on “How to snakes” was a very interesting video. I saw the video at least five times just understand what she was trying to prove. The reason I like this video is because I feel that it is somehow related to Pascal’s triangle, when she showed one can arrange the snake so it can have two or more heads it look a lot like Pascal’s triangle which was very interesting because her explanation can be a good way to introduce Pascal’s triangle in a fun way. This was inspiring to me because it made me look at math in a fun way meaning that I don’t have to see it as just as numbers and formulas.

part 3)

I think that this video has a lot to do with math because it shows a relationship between the snakes fragments and Pascal’s triangle. I believe that this is a way of teaching math in a more calm and easy approach rather than giving students formulas or rules to follow which will cause them (like me ) to forget or not memorize it. I think that this relevant to the work that we are doing in the classroom because we are trying to prove conjectures and state whether it is true or false. I think that Vi Hart idea is to try and prove these conjectures in a more straight forward approach with representation that allows the audience to stay focus.

Videos (Julia Rivera)

Doodling in Math class snakes and graphs ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heKK95DAKms&list=UUOGeU-1Fig3rrDjhm9Zs_wg)

This video was about doodling snakes and how it relates to graphs. Vi Hart showed us that when you draw and snake and you put the snakes head and the tail touching then you can create cool designs which deals with graphs.

9.999… reasons that .999…. = 1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TINfzxSnnIE&list=UUOGeU-1Fig3rrDjhm9Zs_wg&index=41)

This video was about how .999… = 1 is the same as saying 1/2 =0.5 because it has the same value. This reason is not a proof but it is to stay open minded where numbers that are different can have the same value. Vi Hart shows a equation in when you multiply by 10 and subtract x or .999… then divide by 9 you get .999….. She also shows us 9.999 rules of why .999….. equals 1.

How I feel about Logarithms (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-7tcTIrers&index=8&list=UUOGeU-1Fig3rrDjhm9Zs_wg)

Vi Hart talks about how algebra is just fancy counting where you are only counting +1 +1 +1 +1. Hart states that numbers are just symbols of +1. She says that when you subtract or have negative numbers they are +1’s that is going back in time. She says division, multiplication, addition, and subtraction is only counting in a fancy way. To in log you use a system time count, where you have a system that counts in a time sort o way.

 

The video I watched more then 3 times was: Doodling in Math class snakes and graphs. When watching the video I was a bit confused because Vi Hart was talking way too fast and she kept drawing many different pictures. I liked her theories and what she believes in and I like that she was creative. Her creativity and her drawings made me more intrigued to watch more videos because it was interesting to see her perspective of certain math topics.  I really enjoyed watching this video because it made me think about the designs snakes can make which I have never thought about before, it made me more open minded. I learned that when you draw squiggles is the same as making snakes where the two sides are closed, where you can weave and put on the finishing touches, weaving works out perfectly. Where it works for any number closed curved on the plane. I learned that drawing integrals gives you a picture of a rope which is part of knot theory. I also learned that when you draw a squiggle and you close the squiggle up and you color every alternate part, there will be no two colors touching in your shape and this will always happen with any squiggle you draw which is pretty cool. You can also draw squiggle and make interesting surfaces when you shade them in where you will have one edge and one side. I wonder if there was other shapes or drawings that you can draw other then a snake that give you a function on a graph?

I believe that as a teacher I need to get students to be more open minded and not bored by teaching them just facts and formulas and what to memorize. I would have to come up with ways to get students to think creativity so that they are able to come up with ideas. I will guide them to do this. I believe that this is math because the drawings relates to graphs and how graphs are, but it deals with math in a creative way. I don’t believe its teaching I think its something a person can think about when they see a graph or when they are drawing. This wont be work I will be doing in a classroom however if I were to teach students about graphs I will mention this to them so that they can find it interesting and so that they can discover for themselves the way graphs behaves.  This relates to Lockhart’s theory when he stated that math is an art, because in fact I believe it is an art, and Vi Hart uses her creativity and art work to prove it. She uses her imagination of doodling in class which you cant get when you are given a formula to memorize. She is using her ideas in a creative way and it relates to math. Lockhart was right about how teachers don’t really let students use their own ideas or imagination because if we were able to do this we will be like Vi Hart just drawing an putting out ideas. that probably no one else has ever thought of.