[TOS] "doing something cool with planetmath"

Joe Corneli holtzermann17 at gmail.com
Fri Aug 13 20:48:54 UTC 2010


Hi Mel and all:

I'm thinking about setting up a course with p2pu this fall,
as a kind of "get my feet wet" thing.  Here's the most recent
thing I wrote to them (below), submitted for your critique. :)
Note, this basically ignores the CS side, but we've had a ton
of progress on that separately -- the result will some very
shiny new software for PlanetMath (alpha sometime next month).

Joe
.....

Thanks for your *varied* feedback.  As I've thought
more about what I'd like to do with the course, I
really think emphasizing the "DIY" aspect of things
is the route I want to go.  In other words, I intend
to make it open to all topics and levels unless
participants come up with a compelling reason to
focus.

The main "pedagogical" reasons for such radical
openness are:

* to give people one extra reason to take initiative
in their own learning.  One might say "I've always
wanted to learn about P vs NP", another might say
"I've always wanted to learn precalculus" -- both
are overcoming a mental and emotional hurdle.  I'm
not suggesting that it's the *same* hurdle, but
there are probably some similarities.  In the same
way that a writer's workshop can serve writers
with different interests, this "DIY Math" workshop
can serve mathematics learners with different
interests by providing a place to share difficulties
and successes.

* to help people develop skills at co- or peer-to-peer
teaching.  Ultimately people have to do their own
homework exercises and so on, but one can also learn
a lot in mathematics by helping others.  My "teaching
philosophy" is that there are no stupid questions,
even if there are a lot of dumb answers.  Let's see
if we can get better at answering questions together.

Also, for my own "selfish" reasons... I'd like to work
on developing a platform that serves mathematics learners
at all levels.  How does this scale (up or down)?
Well, I'm not sure, and it seems like there's only one
way to find out. :)

On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 12:21 AM, Mel Chua <mel at redhat.com> wrote:
> Resurrecting an old thread:
>
>> We briefly discussed the idea of a class related to PlanetMath.
>> It's probably useful to clarify that there are two tracks to think
>> about:
>>
>> (1) the mathematics side - producing useful content
>> (2) the computing side - producing useful software
>>
>> As has always been the case at PlanetMath, iIdeally the people
>> working on these two sides of the project would talk to each
>> other.
>>
>> In a class setting, I think this might work out in the form of
>> a class that was team-taught by someone in CS and someone
>> in math.  Not strictly necessary, but it would be cool.
>>
>> Any thoughts or ideas about what I'll need to do to move this
>> forward?
>
> The first milestone is probably also the hardest one - find two faculty (one
> math, one CS) willing to try teaching a class like that. Alternatively, you
> could find a group of students who want to pursue it as a group independent
> study, and some professors or TAs (depending on your institutional
> requirements) to mentor it, and start drafting a syllabus.
>
> Basically, "what do I want this learning experience to be," and THEN "how
> can I pitch this idea and position it within my institution so that it
> counts for course credit?"
>
> --Mel
>
> PS: Cormac - hi! You may not remember me, but we met at Wikimania in Taipei
> some years back, I took photos of your presentation on Wikiversity. Glad to
> see you're still around the open education space!
>



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