Teaching & Learning with the Power of Technology!
A Fully Developed, Standards-Based, Interdisciplinary
Project Using the Power of Technology!
Purely Patterns – Connecting Mathematics, Art & Nature takes an interdisciplinary approach to math education. Each activity guides students to recognize and apply mathematics to real-world situations. Designed for middle school, Purely Patterns teaches how mathematical skills are integrated into all subjects. The activities are driven by the national standards of several disciplines, including science, English language arts, mathematics, social studies, and fine arts.
This project strives to engage students by appealing to their natural creativity and curiosity, while providing students with a strong foundation in research skills using the Internet, print material, and computer software. Students will use technology to employ a variety of different learning styles and will demonstrate their understanding of the material in multiple formats. Students will invest time, thought, and effort to produce meaningful products that exhibit creativity, comprehension, and higher order thinking.
The Purely Patterns project sets high academic goals and offers students the means to achieve them. The project emphasizes the use of both traditional and technology-supported research. A distinct component of the Purely Patterns project is its adaptability. Teachers can adjust any or all structures to meet their students' needs more adequately: group size, time on task, level of support, and task difficulty.
Project-based learning has many advantages. It appeals to a variety of learning styles, helps to motivate students, and promotes skill building by providing hands-on, real-world experiences. Each unit of the project includes motivating and engaging tasks. As students complete each section, they develop skills that will enable them to express themselves and communicate their ideas more effectively. Regardless of each student’s individual abilities, all will learn and feel that their contribution is important and respected.
There are three basic elements to a pattern: a motif, repetition, and a system of organization. Purely Patterns provides students with multiple opportunities to experiment with patterns. Through the activities in this project, students will identify, describe, and generalize a wide variety of patterns. They will examine how recognizing patterns can assist in explaining phenomena and help make predictions on what might happen in the future. They will develop an awareness of how understanding patterns is fundamental to understanding the world in which we live.
Purely Patterns includes a color-printed instructional booklet (also supplied in PDF form on CD-ROM), a stand-alone version of Math Course 3 - Geometric Shapes: Step By Step, (the network version is on a separate CD-ROM) the Lesson files for the complete Geometric Shapes Course, and selected Lessons from Math Course 1 - Fractions: Step by Step and Math Course 2 - Decimals & Percents: Step by Step.
In addition to the math software titles used in the Module, you will need:
- A multimedia presentation application (such as Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote),
- A publishing application (such as Microsoft Word or Publisher), and
- A graphics application (such as corefx Three Level, award-winning creativity software from Core Learning, offered at a special price when purchased with the Purely Patterns project).
The Purely Patterns project was written and created for Core Learning Ltd. by TechKnow Associates, experts in project-based learning and integration of technology with curriculum.
Click Here To Download a Non-Printable Version of the Purely Patterns Project
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