Sunday, December 20, 2009

Scott Kim on TED.com

For years I have been using Scott Kim's Inversions to teach the concepts of mirror and rotation symmetry in Geometry class. The students love combining art and math and are able to challenge themselves while having fun.

I have never met another teacher who uses Scott Kim's book (ok, we all like to think we are unique) so was delighted to see that he now has teacher resources, relating to the Inversions book, on his website scottkim.com. I had developed my own methods for teaching the concepts and it is interesting, and helpful, to see exercise developed by the artist.

The video passes too quickly through Kim's examples to truly appreciate them (I paused the video numerous times and I was familiar with most of the slides) so I recommend visiting the website where one can view galleries of the artist's work.

The assignment I use is the following: The students must make two drawings, one using rotation symmetry and one using mirror symmetry. The may use their name (unless they have a naturally symmetric name) or a term relating to mathematics. To give the students inspiration, I show them former students' work and Mr. Kim's book. The students are not allowed to plagiarise the examples but can incorporate the design ideas in their own work. I make use of the windows in the classroom to help the students trace elements of their drawings. For anyone interested in further information in teaching symmetry can send me an email.

Scott Kim takes apart the art of puzzles | Video on TED.com

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