When children start school, how do their brains change to support learning of formal mathematics? Our new paper, with @standehaene.bsky.social, just out in PNAS, followed ~50 children with yearly fMRI scans over 3 years, from preschool to 2nd grade, to see how this network develops. 🧵
Initial organization and progressive expansion of the math-responsive brain network during the first school years
pnas.org
I found this linked essay a useful read, pushing against "it's bad because copyright" (arguably weak) and highlighting more fundamental questions of labor and privacy. Also, a good thread!
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)@doctorow.pluralistic.net · last wk.Or they insist that the mere act of making copies of published works to count their elements and the relationships between them is a sin, despite the fact that this standard would kill search engines, the Internet Archive, and the Oxford English Dictionary: pluralistic.net/2023/09/17/h... 18/
Weeks ago, @chanda.blacksky.app sent me this declaration, written and signed by a bunch of mathematicians. But I only had time to read it yesterday, which ended up being right on time given a new round of hype falling exactly under the patterns this document notes.🧵 leidendeclaration.ai
Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics
This declaration calls for action to address the challenges posed by the use of artificial intelligence within mathematics research.
leidendeclaration.ai
Kid counting update: he can get to twenty, but still hits gibberish at 13/14/15 before landing nicely at 16. Incredible to witness.
Andrew Knauft@aknauft.bsky.social · 11mo ago3 months later, the beeps are gone but he smoothly counts to ten, then "twelve, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, seven, nine".
Yesss finally something I understand enough to remake in desmos! Delightful pattern. www.desmos.com/3d/wmps87t43t
Xor Combustion Recreate
desmos.com
Xor@xordev.com · 8mo agoCombustion vec2 p=FC.xy*6./r.y; for(float i;i++<1e1;i) p+=sin(p.yx*i+i*i+t*i+r)/i; o=tanh(.2/tan(p.y+vec4(0,.1,.3,0))); o*=o;
Have you noticed a change of colors? 🍁 You can now define colors in the 3D calculator that depend directly on coordinates. 📝 Learn more in the Desmos Help Center: help.desmos.com/hc/en-us/art... #iteachmath #mathsky
3 months later, the beeps are gone but he smoothly counts to ten, then "twelve, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, seven, nine".
Andrew Knauft@aknauft.bsky.social · last yr.M is too young to really count, but if you say "five, four, three, two, one," he does a really good job continuing the pattern with "beep, beep, beep!"
I'm 6 minutes in and the founder of Alpha Schools has asserted (with no pushback) that "obviously, the teacher in front of the classroom was born out of the industrial revolution where we had to figure out how to really educate the masses".
Scaling Laws@scalinglaws.bsky.social · 11mo ago"The idea of a teacher at the front of class teaching everybody in a time-based system doesn't work." That conclusion spurred MacKenzie to launch a new model, an AI-driven model. Depending on your POV, it's a model to follow or a sign that we've gone too far. What do you think?
Teachers, make your prediction before reading abstract: did students (Canadian, grades 4-7) do better with multiplying eg "1/2 × 1/2" or "1/2 of 1/2"?
The Cognitive Development Society (CDS)@cogdevsoc.bsky.social · 12mo ago📣📣 A recent paper by Hawes et al. at JCD: How Language Influences Thought: The Case of Multiplying Fractions @zackhawes.bsky.social @hannahwhitehead.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
1/5 Maybe your childhood inspiration ("This is who I want to be") was a movie star or an athlete. Mine was #Tom_Lehrer (1928-2025). I tracked down and studied the sheet music to his songs, memorized all of them (yes, including "The Elements"), and started writing & performing my own satiric ditties.
M is too young to really count, but if you say "five, four, three, two, one," he does a really good job continuing the pattern with "beep, beep, beep!"
A rare miss from Desmos... It's actually my *innie* that has all the fun! teacher.desmos.com/collection/6...
High School Geometry
Explore our collection of free Geometry lessons. Students use a variety of tools to construct geometric figures, and then extend what they learned about rigid transformations in Grade 8 by constructin...
teacher.desmos.com
Desmos Studio@desmos.com · last yr.Your outie makes art...in Desmos. #severance #lumon #mathsky
Long day but kiddo (13mo) just waited in the hallway for me to wave goodnight before walking into his nursery so 🤗
The little one has a set of 7 stacking cups. He doesn't stack them yet, preferring to interfere with Dad's towers. If he always holds two of the cups (one in each hand), how many different towers can Dad make? (Cups are each a different size, and can only stack with the immediate next size.)
This is great: "By manipulating the figure, we can create multiple instances of the situation that still follow the original constraints we set for the figure." There's an assumption there that the constraints of the software match the constraints we intended. I love poking at how that can fail!
Karen Campe@karencampe.bsky.social · 2y agoNew Blog Post: "Go For Geometry!" First in a series about using #geometry technology on ALL the platforms! Check out the activity "Invariants" on Desmos, GeoGebra & TI calculators #MTBoS #iTeachMath #T3Learns #MathSky #MathsToday karendcampe.wordpress.com/2025/01/03/g...
Overheard: "Where did you come from? Did you leave something behind?"
Did I take an extra-long lunch break today to go see #TheMarvels? Yes, I did. Was it fantastically enjoyable? Also yes. One of the best Marvel movies, certainly from whichever phase we're in now.
