In this meeting, we deconstructed a problem from NCTM’s Mathematics Teacher: Learning & Teaching PK-12, using a few ideas from The Art of Problem Posing, by Stephen I. Brown and Marion I. Walter.
Here’s the original problem:
Sequences of Fractions
Author: Eric Appleton
Function Diagrams
I decided to lead a meeting on function diagrams because I’m intrigued by the possibilities of teaching with them and because I wanted to introduce the resources that the math educator Henri Picciotto makes available. I have to admit that I haven’t spent that much time thinking about to teach with function diagrams, but I was interested to see what we can learn together by exploring this visualization.
Continue reading “Function Diagrams”Shadow Math
During our Tuesday, April 18th CAMI meeting, Gina Cortez and Amy Vickers facilitated a conversation around shadows.
Notice/Wonder
We showed this slide and asked the group what they noticed and wondered.
Celtic Knots at COABE 2023!
Mark and I led a hybrid in-person/virtual presentation at the COABE conference in Atlanta, GA at the beginning of April. Since then, new people have joined our mailing list and a recent meeting on April 18th. We’re happy to have you as new members.
You can watch the recording of the meeting below. The padlet mentioned in the meeting (with links to Celtic knots and related tools) is here: https://bit.ly/CAMICOABE2023. Enjoy!
Billiards!
Today we looked at a problem involving rebounding balls on a billiard table.
The rules of our problem:
- A “table” can have different dimensions (measurements of height and width).
- A “ball,” modeled by a straight line, is launched at 45 degrees from the bottom left corner of a table.
Story Tables
In this meeting, Amy introduced the story table, which is a teaching tool for solving algebraic equations. Story tables allow us to use guess and check and then analyze patterns in the results, in order to find values of x that make equations true.
To get us started, Amy shared the following algebraic equation:
3x - 2 = 10
And asked us to tell the story of x. To find a solution in this story, Amy asked us for the moment not use other ways of solving equations.
What Comes Next?
Sarah and Eric have been teaching themselves how to code using Javascript, CSS, and HTML. The What Comes Next? game is the result of more than a year’s work. We are not fast coders! We used this meeting to share our game and to see if teachers might use it with their students.
To play the game: What Comes Next?
Continue reading “What Comes Next?”Representing Fractions
In our first meeting of fall 2021, Sarah and Amy led through the group through an exploration of the ways of cutting a shape into pieces.
Continue reading “Representing Fractions”Sequences
Sarah and I have been meeting once a week to teach ourselves some basic coding. Our first project was a function game. We are currently working on another game involving sequences, which got us thinking about the sequences in this meeting.
Sarah started this meeting by asking the group to consider the following prompt.
A pile of coconuts
Sophie led us through the following problem from the Museum of Math’s weekly puzzle during COVID. Sign up for emails from MoMath.
PUZZLE: Coconut Classic
Five men and a monkey, marooned on an island, collect a pile of coconuts to be divided equally the next morning. During the night, however, one of the men decides he’d rather take his share now. He tosses one coconut to the monkey and removes exactly 1/5 of the remaining coconuts for himself. A second man does the same thing, then the third, fourth, and fifth. The following morning the men wake up together, toss one more coconut to the monkey, and divide the rest equally.What’s the least original number of coconuts needed to make this whole scenario possible?
Mind-Benders for the Quarantined! (Museum of Math, NYC)
We had a lot of interesting ideas and shared a few strategies, but we didn’t get to a solution.
Continue reading “A pile of coconuts”