I need to choose five workshops to attend at the 5OSME (Origami, Science, Math, Education) Conference in Singapore on Wednesday, July 14, and Thursday, July 15.
My goal at the conference is to develop creative lesson plan ideas integrating Origami for my Geometry classes in Boston. I am intrigued and excited by the idea of using Origami to model and experiment with three-dimensional shapes and to improve my students’ geometric understanding.
This is the complete list of workshop offerings at the conference with one-page .pdf descriptions:
http://www.origami-usa.org/5osme_program
Currently, I am leaning toward the education programs because of their relevance to my goal of integrating Origami into my Geometry instruction. Here are some of the workshops I plan to attend:
For the first session I am leaning toward “Connecting Origami Skills with Mathematical Tools.” Charlene Morrow and James Morrow of Mount Holyoke College will discuss the two-week summer Origami workshop they have run for high school girls for the past 20 years. At the summer workshop, their goals have been to help students “develop confidence and find interesting connections with mathematics” and to have “flexibility in learning new material presented from different perspectives.”
For the second workshop on Wednesday, I look forward to learning from Miri Golan of the Israeli Origami Center who will present “The Art of Origami as a Means to Improve Geometric Understanding.”
I will learn about ‘Origametria,’ a program that teaches geometry through the art of origami. According to Golan, this rigorous Origametria method of teaching works towards improving each child’s self image, motor control and sequential thinking, in addition to the development of geometry skills.
I am still unsure about which workshop to attend on Thursday morning.
Christine Edison is presenting “Narratives of Success: Teaching Origami in Low-Income/Urban Communities” about the experiences of multiple teachers, including the author’s, in teaching origami in low-income and high crime neighborhoods. It will include narratives about specific teacher-student interactions in which students had a positive experience, either academically, socially, or emotionally.
I’m also interested in “Using Origami to Teach Geometry to High School Students” about a program in Germany that teaches two weeks of Geometry fundamentals to 8th grade students using origami.
For the fourth session I am currently undecided. There is no education workshop, and the math workshops seem interesting, but potentially too theoretical and less practical for my special education Geometry classes. One workshop that caught my eye is “Origami Design and Music Composition: an extended comparison” about the similarities in the creative processes for music and origami.
Finally, for the fifth and final session, I plan to attend “Math in a Box” by Robert Orndorff. He will describe a paper folding geometric construction and the math behind it,
presented as a sequence of exercises for use in schools. Robert leads origami project-based learning with students in the Seattle Public Schools, and his aim is to restore to the curriculum what he says has been lost: the fun.
I am excited about the variety of presentations I will attend and the ideas I will pick up along the way. Only nine days until I depart..
Two Weeks In Singapore 