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Selected artifacts from the in-service program (B2)
First homework assignment

Monday's Assignment

1. Shared Journal Entry

For tonight's journal entry write about how you felt during the various discussions and activities (the F.A.T. City video, view of mathematics discussion, and tessellation activity ) that took place today. What was your reaction to the F.A.T. City video clips? What were you thinking as we discussed our views of mathematics? How did you engage in the tessellation activities? Were you comfortable? Uncomfortable? What do you expect for tomorrow?

You may also want to elaborate on some of the points you made today, make some new points you did not get a chance to make, or you could respond to any points made by someone else.

2. TESSELLATION ASSIGNMENT: Please do this assignment on separate paper from your journal as your journal will be submitted when you arrive and this work will be used during our session.

a. Please read the article, "What does it mean to study a geometric figure mathematically ?". This article was written for the project participants during the first months of Phase I, long before the unit using tessellations was even conceived of, and it was not remembered or re-read by anyone until last week when Barbara and I were dumbfounded by it ! As you read it we would like you to:

• think about our experiences today: opening up a discussion of "What is math?" and "What does it mean to do math?" and "Interpreting the definition of Tessellation / Justifying Examples / Making Conjectures ", and our plans for tomorrow: to "Test Conjectures and Draw Conclusions";
• jot down some ideas regarding the connections between the article on studying geometric figures and our work with tessellations.

b. In light of your experiences and reading please:

• record your thoughts regarding the role and nature of definitions in mathematics, and;
• (in preparation for tomorrow's experiences) jot down your ideas about : What it means to test a conjecture ? What does a mathematician need to do to test a conjecture? How can we go about testing conjectures ? What does it take to show a conjecture is true or false ? Attempting to verify one of the conjectures mentioned today could help you respond to these questions.

3. Tonight's reading assignment is:

a.) Read the article Problem Solving in Context(s) by Schoenfeld. Although we will not discuss this article explicitly, we are asking you to read it to help put in perspective the kind of mathematical experiences we are engaging in as we explore tessellations and will continue to consider throughout the institute.

b.) Review/finish reading the introductions to the NCTM Curriculum and Evaluation Standards and Professional Standards and begin to make connections with what we are doing in the institute.

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