Home: The Investigative Philosophy
The logistics of the computer portion of teaching TERC
Examples of K - 5th Grade Student Work
Can you remember your strongest learning experiences? What perked your interest so much that you became engulfed in the subject matter and it felt so powerful that it has affected your life from that point on?. It would be surprising if it were a lesson that concentrated on rote learning, and may not have been a lesson that falls into any definition of traditional school work. On the contrary strong learning experiences involve the learner actively. And though the computer is often used solely as a rote tool, it has the potential to facilitate higher level thinking and learning.
At this web site you are going to have the opportunity to see how computers can be used as described above. Instead of asking students to memorize mathematical procedures, the approach presented here uses the computer to help learners investigate and construct an understanding of mathematical concepts and relationships.
The primary software used to exemplify this approach is known as Investigations. All the Investigation programs require the learner to be active. The pages that follow present ways in which to use computers as a tool that enhances the interactive model of learning in the exploration of math. The Investigation software comes from the curriculum created by TREC.
This site was created as part of the New York City's Board of Educations division of OIT, Office of Instructional Technology's. I had the joy and privilage of attending the 2002 Summer Institute on creating web pages that present teachable practices. Sometime after the Board of Education became the Department of Education, the OIT, and the web pages created at their Summer Institute, have been disbanded. I now present my work, which is no longer hosted by the DoE, here on my personal website, www.fierworks.net