by MathPickle | Jul 13, 2019 |
Solving murder mysteries have police making connections between underworld characters. Strings are pinned up between existing suspects. New subjects are pinned up. It all looks like a big mess. But never fear! We are here to bring order to this chaos! Hopefully, our...
by MathPickle | Sep 2, 2015 |
Speed is essential, but some curricula value it too much. The core of every mathematics classroom should be problem solving. Ponderous problem solvers need to be protected. I am not making the case against memorizing basic facts. Students absolutely need to memorize...
by MathPickle | Jul 9, 2015 |
Many students, especially girls, are motivated by beauty. Make sure that both the mathematics and the puzzle-sheets are beautiful. The type of beauty I’m talking about is more minimalistic than the art of Renoir or van Gogh – more like graphic design where...
by MathPickle | Jul 9, 2015 |
Add a two sentence story to your puzzles. Many children don’t need them, but the half of your class with too much testosterone will appreciate a Klingon attack on Earth or a shark attack in the local swimming pool 😉 My perception is that girls are neither more or less...
by MathPickle | Jul 9, 2015 |
Keep enough chaos in your classroom so that the slow kids don’t know they’re slow and the fast students don’t know they’re fast. One easy way to do this is through multiple puzzle-sheets and avoiding a linear progression through them. Let’s say you have puzzle...
