Big Questions and Big Answers

Author: Peter Gao

Peter taught at BEAM Discovery NYC in 2019 and had a wonderful time working with (and learning from) students in his Logical Reasoning and Applied Math classes. He is currently working towards a PhD in Statistics at the University of Washington and hopes to make teaching a central part of his career.

This course is good for someone who…

  • Is interested in and comfortable moderating discussion on bias with students.

  • Is a middle school math teacher: the course contains questions that can be used in year-round instruction.

  • Is an academic with limited experience teaching middle schoolers: the course’s organization and student engagement strategies make it straightforward to use “out of the box”.

This course features…

  • Fermi question races, probability and fairness concepts explored via dice games, and other topics.

  • An introduction to statistical concepts aligned with middle school Common Core Learning Standards.

  • Estimation as a vehicle for building number sense and introducing scientific notation.