In this monthly column, we speak with a notable member of the mathematics education community about their work and their perspectives on the teaching and learning of mathematics. This month, we had the pleasure of speaking with Patrick Maidorn.

Patrick Maidorn has been a mathematics and statistics instructor at the University of Regina for the past twenty-one years. Apart from teaching undergraduate classes, Patrick has also been involved in the development of several mathematical outreach programs for students in Grades 1-12, including the University of Regina Math Camp and Math Circles, as well as the Canadian Math Kangaroo Contest.

 Patrick grew up in Luxembourg, where he attended the European School. He holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Guelph, a Masters of Mathematics from the University of Waterloo, and a Bachelor of Education from the University of Western Ontario. Realizing that each move took him further west on the map, he made one more westward leap to settle in Regina. He hopes to eventually get used to the cold winters of Saskatchewan. After two decades, he is still waiting.

First things first, thank you for taking the time to have this conversation!

You have been recognized for your hard work in mathematics education and outreach, including by the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS), who awarded you the PIMS Education Prize in 2016. What kinds of mathematics camps, competitions, or other outreach activities are you involved in today?  Continue reading →

In this monthly column, we speak with a notable member of the mathematics education community about their work and their perspectives on the teaching and learning of mathematics. This month, we had the pleasure of speaking with Malke Rosenfeld.

Malke Rosenfeld is a percussive dance teaching artist, math explorer, math artist, TEDx presenter, author, and editor. Her interdisciplinary inquiry focuses on the intersection between percussive dance and mathematics and how to build meaningful learning experiences at this crossroads. Malke’s interests also include embodied cognition in mathematics learning, task and activity design in a moving math classroom, elementary math education, and writing as a professional development tool. Her teaching and artistic endeavors focus on explorations of the relationship between number, rhythm, constraint, and shape in a variety of modalities. Malke delights in creating rich environments in which children and adults can explore, make, play, and talk math based on their own questions and inclinations.

First things first, thank you for taking the time for this conversation!

For the past decade or so, you have been exploring the relationship between mathematics learning and dance, which has included developing and facilitating a program called Math in Your Feet and, most recently, publishing a book entitled Math on the Move (2016, Heinemann). In most people’s eyes, mathematics and dance are an unlikely pair. So I would like to start by asking: How can the two disciplines inform and complement each other?

Both math and dance are highly creative and expressive human endeavors. Not all of math is danceable and not all dance is mathematical, but there are some really nice overlaps between the two. In particular, the moving body is best positioned to explore and express the verbs of math, literally embodying the mathematical practices. There are also certain math ideas that can literally be put into action. In the early stages of writing my book, I did an experiment with dancers in three dance forms different from mine (hip hop, modern, and belly dance!) to see how/if certain action-oriented math ideas might resonate with the dancers. I also wondered if these ideas could function as choreographic prompts for what is called “movement invention,” and it turned out I was onto something! Continue reading →