MathNEXUS





Introduction
Jerry Johnson's MathNEXUS is a math education project with a mission of Building Communities of Learners and Leaders in Mathematics. The project is a partnership dedicated to jointly increasing mathematics achievement levels for all students (K-14) and narrowing differences between diverse student populations.

Content of the MathNEXUS Website
The Website includes sections on:


 * Problem of the Week.


 * Quote of the Week.


 * Statistic of the Week.


 * Humor of the week.


 * Website of the Week.


 * Math Person of the Week.


 * Resource of the Week.


 * Golden Oldie of the Week.


 * Calendar: Events and Birthdays.

New material is added weekly, and there is an archive of past materials. Tom Lehrer … and His Gift for Mathematical Satire is an excellent example of the archived humor. Here is another example:


 * Higher Mathematics


 * "All right, Elroy," the teacher said to the sixth grader, "let's see you count."


 * Holding out his hand, Elroy counted off the digits. "One, two, three, four, five."


 * Smiling, the teacher said, "Very good, but can you count any higher?"


 * Lifting his hand over his head, Elroy started to count over again.

About Jerry Johnson
Jerry's career as a math educator began with teaching in a private middle school in California. There, he was told that his main goal was to have the students learn to like math. This has been one of his goals throughout his long teaching career.

After earning a doctorate in math and his teaching credentials, Jerry taught in the K-12 Independent School in Seattle Washington and then gained a position in the Math Department at Western Washington University. He has been on the faculty there for more than 30 years.

One of his current favorite pastimes is collecting stories about and quotations from Yogi Berra, a famous baseball player. Yogi Berra is well known for his pithy comments comments and witticisms. Math-related examples include:


 * ”I usually take a two hour nap from one to four.”


 * As a general comment on baseball: "Ninety percent of this game is half mental."


 * When asked if he wanted a personal pizza cut into 4 or 8 slices, Yogi responded with "Better cut it into 4, I don't think I could eat 8."


 * You give 100 percent in the first half of the game, and if that isn't enough in the second half you give what's left."


 * "It's tough making predictions, especially about the future."

Comment by David Moursund 10/16/08
The MathNEXUS site is an excellent example of a math education digital filing cabinet. The design is simple and clean. The Website is database driven, which means that it is very easy for the owner to add new materials without knowing the details of HTML. Programming for Jerry's Website was done by Tony Jongejan, a long time leader in the field of computers in education.

At the 2008 NorthWest Mathematics Conference I had the opportunity and pleasure of hearing Jerry give a math education talk that focused on Yogi Berra quotations. (See some examples of such quotations in the previous section. Notice how many—perhaps all—easily fit into the learning and doing of math.) It was excellent presentation, and it provided good examples of how to make math education enjoyable.