Darci Kracht's FunMath E-Book Page

Food for Thought

"As educators we want to help our students do mathematics. Yet herein lies a dangerous implicit conspiracy between pupils and teachers. When a child cannot cope with mathematics the cry is 'show me how to do it'. When the chips are down, in a large class with pressures all around, it is natural to do just that. And, for a time, everyone is happy. The child has instant gratification, the teacher is pleased that the child can do something, parents and politicians are satisfied that progress is being made. Yet, if we simply show children the procedures of mathematics, we may end up by confining them to a cul-de-sac of mathematical shortsightedness which ends up in terminal failure."

--David Tall, "Success and failure in arithmetic and algebra", Mathematics Teaching, 1991.

FunMath 4 E-book

(Version current as of the date given.)

FunMath 4 E-book: (updated Tue, 05 Aug 2008, 10:34 pm)

Other Documents

Lab Hand-outs from Kracht's Funmath IV Spring 2007
- Factoring perfect squares
  (A few errors need correcting.)
- Factors, zeros, x-intercepts
  (Not happy with format.)
- Factors, zeros, x-intercepts II
  (Still not happy with format.)
- Fractions
  (Many of these were taken from a quiz by Carol Steiner.)
- Rates
  (All are from Teaching Fractions and Ratios for Understanding by Susan J. Lamon.)
Previous Funmath Outlines
- FunMath I-IV Topics (2004)
- FunMath V-VI Topics (2004)
- FunMath Basic Data Sheets (2004)
- Functions approach: 01/29/06 This has been largely abandoned, but some people liked it, so I thought I'd leave it here for reference.
- FunMath4 Outline: Revised 6/06/07 after grand reality check (teaching FM2-4) Further revisions have been made. See the table of contents of current draft of the e-book itself for the most up-to-date outline of topics.
My view of the content editors' roles
Some Guiding Principles (2005)
Joe Altobelli's Hand-outs (Summer 2004)