In this article, the authors explain how they leveraged the popularity of the "Star Wars" franchise to introduce a task steeped in popular culture as a fun way to engage their students in investigating complex mathematics that have real-life connections to careers in toy design and engineering design in general. The authors share various…

As three-dimensional (3D) printing technology is fast becoming more affordable and accessible, calculus instructors can now consider using 3D printing and 3D printed models to actively engage students in core concepts relating to objects in R[superscript 3]. This article describes three lessons for a multivariable calculus class in which students…

More and more schools are acquiring advanced manufacturing equipment. Activities that incorporate the use of this equipment for the purpose of teaching some academic content can either be designed or redesigned for other educational purposes as well. This article describes how the authors extended an activity that was initially designed to help…

"Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions" is an 1884 novella written by English schoolmaster Edwin Abbott. He describes what it would be like to live in a two-dimensional (2D) world--Flatland. It is fascinating reading that underscores the challenge of teaching three-dimensional (3D) mathematics using 2D tools. Real-world applications of…

With the rise of personal desktop 3D printing, a wide spectrum of educational opportunities has become available for educators to leverage this technology in their classrooms. Until recently, the ability to create physical 3D models was well beyond the scope, skill, and budget of many schools. However, since desktop 3D printers have become readily…

In this article, middle school mathematics teacher Jennifer Zakrzewski describes how she successfully incorporated iPads and Apple TV (for projection of iPad screens) into her classroom while having her students solve a problem about mangoes. As Zakrzewski began a unit on multiplying and dividing fractions, she chose to start with the Mangoes…

In this paper we describe a touchscreen application called "TouchCounts," which is designed to support the development of number sense in the early years. We first provide an a priori analysis of its affordances. Then, using Sfard's communicational approach, augmented by a focus both on the role of the body--particularly the fingers…

When Caren Holtzman and Lynn Susholtz look around a classroom, they see "a veritable goldmine of mathematical investigations" involving number, measurement, size, shape, symmetry, ratio, and proportion. They also think of the ways great artists have employed these concepts in their depictions of objects and space--for example, Picasso's use of…

In this article, we discuss whiteboard math movies (a.k.a. mathcasts) and their applications to mathematics education. A whiteboard math (wbm) movie is a screen recording of writing plus voice and/or text explaining a mathematical concept or solving a problem. The movie is then produced to Flash movie format and distributed via CD or Internet. The…