Last week the first ever Julia Robinson Mathematics Festiva l was held in San Diego. What a great event celebrating the joy of math in a non-competitive atmosphere. About 70 students, mostly from grades 6-8, were in attendance. My favorite part was watching kids be comfortable enough to admit what they don’t remember, and figure…
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If you are going to coach a math club, it is likely that you will come across at least some of the following challenges: A classroom full of students at different levels, despite the fact that most students in the math club self-selected to be there Creating an atmosphere where students feel emotionally safe enough to participate…
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I found out first hand how important art instruction is for teaching math from some of our math competitions. When there were problems involving cubes, such as counting their surface area or volume, the students’ ability to make a sketch in the high pressured environment of the competition came into play. It didn’t have to be a…
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Nowadays, thanks to modern day computers, we have instant access to the approximation of π (the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter) to any degree of accuracy. But back in antiquity, getting a good approximation of π was elusive and difficult. Over 2000 ago, the Greek mathematician and scientist Archimedes derived an accurate approximation of π using…
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