Eric Appleton

Dana’s Rectangle

Inspired by the work of the Navajo Math Circle, CAMI explores the area of rectangles and their borders, testing conjectures and making generalizations.

Eric started the meeting by talking about the Navajo Math Circles, which is a joint project of the Navajo Nation and mathematicians from Math Teachers Circle Network. A recent documentary tells the story. This meeting’s problem is from an article about the Navajo Math Circle (see Further Reading pdf link above) by Tatiana Shubin, whose video Grid Power was the subject of this past July’s CAMI meeting.

Continue reading “Dana’s Rectangle”

The Lawn Mower Problem

What happens when we let students write the questions?

Tyler opened the meeting by giving us a situation adapted from one he’d seen on Twitter posted by Fawn Nguyen. He then asked two questions: What do you notice? What do you wonder? Continue reading “The Lawn Mower Problem”

Grid Power

What mathematical questions can you ask of a blank piece of grid paper?

After CAMI was recently accepted as a member of the Math Teachers’ Circle Network, a few of us started exploring their resources, which include a series of videos of mathematicians leading teacher circles. Eric was inspired to share today’s problem after watching Tatiana Shubin’s Grid Power.

Eric started the meeting by asking participants to look at a blank piece of graph paper for 7 minutes and write down questions that came up. 7 minutes?! Yes, 7 minutes. Continue reading “Grid Power”

Millions and Billions

I need your help visualizing millions and billions.

In a recent interview on Innovation Hub, the mathematician and educator Steven Strogatz reflected on math education (specifically the requirement for students to study algebra) and the level of number in the general public:

“We don’t do a very good job of teaching what you might think of as numeracy, that is, the use of arithmetic [in the real world]. So, here’s an example: In current political discussion, there is a lot of talk from Senator Sanders about millionaires and billionaires, right? Continue reading “Millions and Billions”

Resources from NCTM 2016

So many games, puzzles and problems from the NCTM annual meeting…

In April, along with some other CAMI members, Jane and Solange went to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) annual meeting in San Francisco. In this meeting, they shared some of their favorite games, puzzles and problems from different workshops.

We started with the game Which Number is Closest? from Building Mathematical Thinking Through Number Games, by Linda Dacey and Jayne Bamford Lynch. We played a variation of the game where we each rolled a ten-sided die and then wrote down each number in the box of our choice. Continue reading “Resources from NCTM 2016”

Slip Sliding Away

A look at the slip slide method of factoring polynomials

Cynthia started by showing us Kahoot, a free and easy way to run a quiz game in class with students buzzing in through cell phones. Kahoot allows you to create surveys and surveys. Students load Kahoot.it through their cell phone and are asked for a PIN. Once a student enters a PIN, they join the game.

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Signed Number Pyramids

Using number pyramids to practice adding signed numbers leads to a surprising discovery.

Jane started the meeting by telling us that her class has been studying signed numbers recently. She has been looking for creative ways for them to understand adding and subtracting signed numbers. One example was to imagine taking away negativity as the same thing as making someone happier.

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Pascal’s Triangle

A big thank you to Turning Point for hosting us this month and raising the bar for all future hosts. We started with a tour of TP’s building and saw their classrooms, offices, and rooftop deck (!). Evidence of great student work is everywhere with student posters and presentations on the diverse topics of supply and demand, classified ads for housing, and dice and probability. It was wonderful to see such a beautiful, well-established community-based education program with full-time staff. And they provided refreshments!

For this meeting, we looked at Pascal’s Triangle, since it came up in discussion at the end of the October craps meeting Continue reading “Pascal’s Triangle”

The Mathematics of How CAMI Got Its Name

What does it mean for a decision to be democratic? What role can math play? We explore 7 different voting methods to find out (and name our math teacher circle).

Background

So before our last meeting (Feb. 2015), we sent out an electronic survey to choose a name for our group. Teachers were asked to put the 12 choices in their order of preference from most preferred to least preferred.

Mark presented the results from the electronic survey to name our group. Here are the Results from Online Survey he created. Rather than announce a winner, Mark asked everyone to take a few minutes to look over the report. Continue reading “The Mathematics of How CAMI Got Its Name”