Friday (10/28) morning I presented on Math and the Real World: What's the Deal with Modeling? at the annual conference of the Ohio Council of Teachers of Mathematics in Sandusky, OH.
I had much better turnout than I expected for first thing on a Friday morning and the audience was so engaged! We had a great conversation about mathematical modeling and how it differs from representing mathematics (sometimes called modeling mathematics) and stepping-stone tasks.
Several teachers seemed motivated to integrate math modeling into their classrooms and had a number of smart suggestions for how to do so in elementary (for instance, giving some information and asking children what questions they could pose).
A number of teachers requested more resources. Originally I was going to create a handout to email to participants, but instead I created this website.
Below are the slides from my presentation. I invite attendees (and others) to use the comment section to update us on how you are using mathematical modeling in your teaching.
