Most of you got to see the video of Robert Lang talking about origami on Friday before the mid-winter break. There were several things about his talk that I found very interesting, even beyond the mere fact of what he is able to create with origami. These relate to our study of math because they address what we call "the process strands". There are 10 standards that the National Council of the Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has laid out and that we try to meet in math class; 5 content strands and 5 process strands. You are probably familiar with the content strands which are:
- Number and Operations
- Algebra
- Geometry
- Measurement
- Data Analysis and Probability
We are focused mostly on Algebra in our class but touch on all of the others at various times. What I really want to get across is the importance of the other 5 strands, those "process" strands. In many ways these are even more important than content strands because they are the "real life" skills that math is supposed to be all about. They are:
- Problem Solving
- Reasoning and Proof
- Communication
- Connections
- Representation
Now what came up in that origami video was that he touched on all 5 of these process strands and I'm wondering if you are able to see how that is?
If you would like to see the video again, here is the link:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/robert_lang_folds_way_new_origami.html
it's only 15 minutes long but I think it deserves more than one look.
Another thing that I found interesting was how Robert Lang simply stated that math was capable of taking things up another notch because it looked at the underlaying principles of origami. This is true of so many things I can't even begin to emphasize the importance of that thought. And lastly, I loved the way he said that we can use the work of dead people to make things easier for ourselves because I've said some similar things about how we are studying solutions to old problems in order to help us find solutions to our problems. There is a saying, "We stand on the shoulders of giants."
