Community of Adult Math Instructors (CAMI)
teachers learning math together
We started with a quick game of online Simon Says.
It was okay, but a little clunky. Usha suggested a different kind of activity where video on means yes and video off means no. Read a series of statements. Here are a few I brainstormed: Winter is my favorite season of the year. I love ice cream. I am excited to be back in school. I want to go to college. (You probably have better examples.) End with a statement everyone can say yes to…
Continue reading “Rainbow Squares”In this meeting, we explored the sums of consecutive numbers (inspired by a CAMI meeting led by Usha Kotelawala in June 2017). The meeting is also based on a two-day lesson I led with the support of other teachers during summer 2020 problem-solving meetings with CUNY adult education students.
Before the meeting, I shared this post on the CAMI email list:
In this meeting, we explored Henri Piccioto’s number pyramid puzzles through notice/wonder, generating questions for problem-solving and additional puzzles for students.
At the beginning of the meeting, we shared some favorite sources of puzzles we like to use with students, include Which One Doesn’t Belong, Sometimes, Always, Never, and Open Middle.
Then I introduced Number Pyramids. Thank you to Henri Piccioto and his amazing web site of math resources. Here is the sequence we used:
Sarah Lonberg-Lew of the Adult Numeracy Network and SABES joined us from Gloucester, MA to lead this meeting with me (honestly, I did very little). We explored a diagram that Play With Your Math calls factor graphs. They got the idea from Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension, by the mathematician and educator Matt Parker. (Check out Numberphile for some of his videos.)
The week before the meeting we sent out this teaser:
Usha took advantage of the fact that we are all sitting in front of computers to lead us through a modeling exercise in Excel.
After some spreadsheet basics, Usha led us through a meeting in which worked in groups to think about modeling some aspect of the COVID19 outbreak.
Continue reading “Modeling the Coronavirus”For the COVID19 virus, pose 3 specific quantitative questions, the answers to which would be useful in your role as health commissioner. Try to consider questions that can be dealt with mathematically.
Have you ever thought about why some fractions turn into decimal representations that go on and on, while others terminate?
Andrew started by describing two kinds of decimal representations of fractions:
Three very different visual solutions were shared in response to a problem about dividing 2-digit numbers.
This was our first online meeting (made necessary by the COVID-19 outbreak). It was a great distraction and made it possible for Adult Numeracy Network friends to join us from the Hudson Valley, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin. Our meetings for the next few months will almost certainly be online, so join us if you’re able.
The problem for this meeting came from Math with Bad Drawings and @mathsjem before that:
Continue reading “Dividing a 2-digit number by the sum of its digits”Nice little puzzle pic.twitter.com/qh7FCkcjLN
— Jo Morgan (@mathsjem) October 22, 2019
Ramon led the group into an investigation of a simple equation with many possible solutions.
Ramon Garcia brought a problem type called an Open Middle problem. He talked about how usually teachers give students problems that look like this:
1+2=?
There is one answer: 3. And you’re done. (It could be more challenging, but it would still have only one solution that makes the equation true.)
Continue reading “Open Middle equations”Solange shared some card puzzles and tricks that she has been playing with. Our job was to figure out how they worked.
The first card “trick” (more of a puzzle, really) was from Marilyn Burns’ blog. It’s called the 1-10 card investigation.
A simple situation with a mother and daughter’s ages leads to many questions and interesting observations.
In August, at a summer board meeting of the Adult Numeracy Network, the fabulous Sarah Lonberg-Lew (@MathSarahLL) shared a problem. Well, it wasn’t really a problem, more like something she noticed. In the meeting, she asked what we noticed and what questions we might ask.
