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Bringing Math Concepts to Life |
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During summer 2008, Mathematics teacher Matt Enlow created three interactive demonstrations using the software package Mathematica. According to Enlow, “The purpose of the demonstrations was to help bring to life certain mathematical concepts that students often have difficulty grasping, in a way that static diagrams and formulas could not. These demonstrations can be opened and manipulated by anyone who has the free Mathematica Player software on their computer. One demonstration provides a rotatable three-dimensional diagram of what it means to cube a binomial, another attempts to demystify the concept of measuring angles in radians, and a third demonstrates how we can divide one Gaussian integer by another to yield a quotient and a remainder. These demonstrations, and others like them, could be used by teachers in the classroom, or the students could be asked to access them on their own time, play with them in certain ways, and, for example, answer questions about the experience on a worksheet. This project was only a beginning as I hope to have the opportunity in the future to both create more demonstrations for use in our department, and fine-tune the ones I've already created.”
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