The Four Color Theorem comes alive with Blokus
The holiday season is here and, for most of us, this means many hours spent with family and friends. Tired of playing the same old board games or just sitting[…]
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Math Vocabulary becomes Art: Playing with Wordle
So, I’m sitting in the conference room with two fellow instructional coaches, and I just showed them Wordle. And all three of us are intrigued with how we can use[…]
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Seeing and Working with Triangles in a New Way
Sometimes you just need a new way to “see” the math. On Monday, I observed what was to be an 8th grade math lesson on solving for angles of triangles.[…]
Two-Dollar Bill: What are the Chances?
Over the weekend, my husband was at a local coffee shop and the change he received for his large hot mocha included a two-dollar bill. The bill was crisp and[…]
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Bringing Math Alive with Virtual Manipulatives – Surface Area of Prisms
There’s only so much you can do with a cardboard box. But, technology can ease and enhance the delivery of meaningful math lessons such as the one my colleague, Mrs.[…]
Thinking out of the box
“It’s not what you are that holds you back. It’s what you think you’re not.” – Denis Waitley Do you know how circus elephants are trained? While training a newly[…]
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7 Sites that Can Edit and Proofread Your Paper
Here are seven sites that you can use to edit and proofread your work. Some of the websites are manual proofreaders, and some are proofreading services. Some are even a[…]
Engaging your children – there has to be a better way than just watching movies
Yesterday, as I was eating breakfast, I watched a few segments of the Today Show. And I happened to catch a segment about keeping your kids engaged while they are[…]
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High School Math: Will I ever use this in my life?
Suppose that you have just introduced your 7th grade students to the basic concepts in geometry and one of your students happens to ask you the following question: “Will I[…]
What kind of innovator are you: Cezanne or Picasso?
According to Malcolm Gladwell, innovators can be classified into two distinct groups depending on whether they are “conceptual” or “experimental”. A very typical conceptual innovator was Pablo Picasso, who had[…]
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Analytical Thinking – Solving Multiple Problems at the Same Time
Being able to solve multiple problems at the same time using limited resources is a typical example of what we, the mathematicians, refer to as analytical thinking. This type of[…]
One experience is worth thousand warnings – learning from experience
A university professor once gave an assignment to his students at a major university in the United States in which the students had to write an essay addressing the following[…]