The Light Bulb Went On
Dr. Paul Zachlin
November 19, 2019
The Crooked River Math Teachers’ Circle had their second meeting of the 2019-2020 academic school year on November 19, 2019 at the ESC. The meeting began with pizza and conversation at 4:00. At 4:30, Sara Good presented the appe-teaser which was some puzzles involving squares. Paul Zachlin from Lakeland Community College followed with The Light Bulb Problem, which is a variant of the classic “Locker Problem”. A lot of mathematics came to light!
Shuffling Around
Dr. Paul Zachlin
September 19, 2019
CRMTC held the first session of the 2019-2020 year on Thursday, September 19th at the ESC of Cuyahoga County. Twenty-Seven (27) educators including university faculty, university students, and K-12 classroom teachers attended the meeting. All five (5) members of the Leadership Team (Lynn Aring, Michael Buescher, Sara Good, Kate Lane, and Paul Zachlin) also attended the meeting.
Participants warmed-up by organizing a single suit from a deck of cards so that the cards would be laid down in ascending order (A – 2 – 3 – etc.) using a down & under deal. That is, the first card is laid down, the next goes to the bottom of the deck, the next card down, the next to the bottom, etc. Kate Lane from Baldwin Wallace University led this activity.
Following this activity, Sara Good and Paul Zachlin led the group in the Roommate Game – An Exploration of Stable Matchings. We were challenged to find a way to pair roommates so that nobody would leave their roommate for a different one. (If you are interested, you can find the problem here: https://www.mathteacherscircle.org/news/mtc-magazine/spring19/roommate/)
Many thanks to the Greater Cleveland Council of Teachers of Mathematics for providing the salad, pizza, and snacks.
Summer Summary 2019
June 17, 2019-June 19, 2019
Summer Immersion Workshop
Day One
Sara Good began the day with a variation of the popular game Guess Who? Not only did participants get to know each other, but they also hat to use a little math to formulate a winning strategy.
Next, Michael Buescher had everyone explore some patterns that arise from simple arithmetic with consecutive integers. It was fun, and now we were really starting to use our noggins.
In the afternoon, Steve Miller from the Rubber City MTC had everyone building skyscrapers, and a lot was learned from the experience. Lynn Aring had everyone do some self-reflection at the end of the day.
Day Two
In the morning, Sara Good pulled out the classic game, Rack-O. We played, we asked questions, and we found ourselves doing mathematics! Lynne Pachnowski from the Rubber City MTC was the next presenter.
In the afternoon, Paul Zachlin led the group in studying Mathematics from Primary Historical Sources. We explored an ancient tablet and the mathematical notation used on it. The main activity was Generating Pythagorean Triples using the methods of Pythagoras and Plato. Lynn Aring asked everyone to consider the “teacher moves” they had utilized on Day Two.
Day Three
Michael Buescher started everyone off exploring Magic Squares. Then Kate Lane followed that up with an exploration of Panda Squares. In both cases, there were plenty of patterns to recognize and follow!
Covering and Tiling
Dr. Paul Zachlin
May 9, 2019
CRMTC held the last session of the 2018-2019 year on May 9th at the ESC of Cuyahoga County.
Kate Lane from Baldwin Wallace University began the evening with an “appeteaser” called “Grasshopper Numbers”. Following this activity, her colleague Aaron Montgomery, also from Baldwin Wallace, explored the covering of different size checkerboards with different size pieces. We began with rectangles of size 1x2. Things got more complicated as we looked at boards with 'holes' and tried covering with different size pieces.
Triple Fun
Dr. Paul Zachlin
March 7, 2019
The Crooked River Math Teacher’s Circle gathered on Thursday, March 7th for an evening of “Triple Fun.” The evening began with pizza, salad and an activity led by Kate Lane called “Three Numbers.” Given any three digit number, you may choose any digit, erase it, and replace it with the sum of the other two, minus 1. Quick and easy process, but it can lead down some delightful rabbit holes. Continuing with the theme of “triples”, Paul Zachlin led the group in a discussion of Pythagorean Triples which began by looking at Plimpton 322, an ancient Babylonian text that some conjecture to be some sort of trig table.
Christmas Crackers
Dr. Paul Zachlin
January 12, 2019
Fellow math enthusiasts gathered at the Education Service Center of Northeast Ohio to explore mathematics at the recent Crooked River MathTeachers’ Circle. Kate Lane teased the group with a the popular dice game of Tenzi. Sara Good followed with the Mystery Calculator, a mathematical treasure found in many Christmas Crackers during the holidays.The group used deductive reasoning to uncover how and why the Mystery Calculator worked. In the afternoon, Lynn Aring challenged participants with an Estimathon after taking them through engaging tasks of estimation from Estimation180.com.
Join the Crooked River Math Teachers’ Circle on Thursday, March 7,2019 from 4:30-7:30 at the same location. Registration begins at 4:00pm. For more information and resources, visit crookedrivermtc.org and follow us [email protected]