In this week of inspirational math we watched 5 videos followed with 4 activities. The videos were from the Stanford University Math Department. Every activity including the videos took about 60 minutes.
Video Descriptions:
Strategies for Learning Math: In this video it talks about how people learn in different ways a different speeds.
Depth is greater than Speed: This video shows you that just because you are fast at math doesn't mean you really get the concept.
Brains grow and change: For the third video it teach's that no one is a "math person" or has a "math brain". Everyone is able to learn the same kind of math.
Believe in Yourself: When doing math problems if you believe in yourself you will have a higher change of doing it better.
Mistakes are Valuable: The last video talks about how making mistakes is actually a good thing and helps your brain grow and better understand what you did wring.
Activities Descriptions:
Building Shapes: This first one we have one circle rope that we have to make different shapes out of.
Number Visual Pennies: We have 100 pennies and we have to equally divide them into groups of 3,5,6,7,9.
One Cut Geometry: We were given one piece of paddy paper and were given the task of making a triangle in one cut.
Square-Mania: The last activity we did was we had a certain amount of squares and we have to find a number in the square given. If you want to know more of the process I talk more about it below.
The firth activity we did was called "Square Mania". In this activity we where given a paper that has three problems, the first one read: "Ten lines segments were used to create this figure. Now there are 17 squares. Do you agrees? Justify your answer." My work in below.
Video Descriptions:
Strategies for Learning Math: In this video it talks about how people learn in different ways a different speeds.
Depth is greater than Speed: This video shows you that just because you are fast at math doesn't mean you really get the concept.
Brains grow and change: For the third video it teach's that no one is a "math person" or has a "math brain". Everyone is able to learn the same kind of math.
Believe in Yourself: When doing math problems if you believe in yourself you will have a higher change of doing it better.
Mistakes are Valuable: The last video talks about how making mistakes is actually a good thing and helps your brain grow and better understand what you did wring.
Activities Descriptions:
Building Shapes: This first one we have one circle rope that we have to make different shapes out of.
Number Visual Pennies: We have 100 pennies and we have to equally divide them into groups of 3,5,6,7,9.
One Cut Geometry: We were given one piece of paddy paper and were given the task of making a triangle in one cut.
Square-Mania: The last activity we did was we had a certain amount of squares and we have to find a number in the square given. If you want to know more of the process I talk more about it below.
The firth activity we did was called "Square Mania". In this activity we where given a paper that has three problems, the first one read: "Ten lines segments were used to create this figure. Now there are 17 squares. Do you agrees? Justify your answer." My work in below.
The steps I took to start solving this question was I labeled all of the square I saw at first. The number that I saw at first was 12 but if you look closely there are actually 17. I unlined 3 more that I noticed, which if you can't tell are 4 of the small square put together. I circled two more in green that I saw.
For the second question read: "Nine lines segments were used to create this figure. Now there are 20 squares. Do you agree?"
For the second question read: "Nine lines segments were used to create this figure. Now there are 20 squares. Do you agree?"
To start out on this one I labeled all the visible squares, I counted 12. Like the problem before I found much bigger squares within the squares, putting the number at 18. To find the last 2 I drew a line down the middle creating the last 2 which brings you to 20.
The last question read: "What is the least amount of line segments that make exactly 100 squares? How many different ways can you make a particular number of squares?
The last question read: "What is the least amount of line segments that make exactly 100 squares? How many different ways can you make a particular number of squares?
For this one I just figured that answer is 50 because that is haft of 100 and that how many squares you are trying to get out of it. In the problem before this 9 is about haft of 20.
Reflection: The Habits of a Mathematician that I used in this week of inspirational math was starting out small and collaborating with others. When working on problems I sometimes get overwhelmed looking at the whole thing but this week I challenged myself to go in little sections, which really worked for me. One of my favorite things in math is collaborating with my peers. I love to see what they see in a problem that I don't see, and share with them what I see differently. In question two collaborating was really helpful because I could see how there was 20 squares but the people at my table worked it out with me.
Reflection: The Habits of a Mathematician that I used in this week of inspirational math was starting out small and collaborating with others. When working on problems I sometimes get overwhelmed looking at the whole thing but this week I challenged myself to go in little sections, which really worked for me. One of my favorite things in math is collaborating with my peers. I love to see what they see in a problem that I don't see, and share with them what I see differently. In question two collaborating was really helpful because I could see how there was 20 squares but the people at my table worked it out with me.