Warren the Welder

The math fairy left a new problem in a comment on the last post. I didn't want anyone to miss it so I'm reposting it. Here it goes:

Warren has 3 sheets of tin 36x36. He wishes to make some boxes by cutting equal corners from all sheets. He folds up the sides to form "open top" boxes. Being frugal, he decides to weld the 12 squares into two cubes. How should he do this to maximize the total volume?

Thanks for the problem....whoever you are?

pic credit

Top Ten Reasons to Attend AMATYC

Here's another top ten list that Sue, Sandy, and Bonnie helped me with.

Top Ten Reasons to attend AMATYC
10-you get a ton of new ideas
9-rejuvenate your original teaching energies
8-the Woo-Woo’s at Banana Leaves
7-identify best teaching practices in a variety of different courses and environments
6-see the latest gadgets and apps in the Exhibit Hall
5-request features and products from publishers
4-win lots of free stuff
3-a big hug from Steve Krevitsky
2-cool math t-shirts to embarrass you family and friends with
And the number 1 reason to attend AMATYC…
You’re no longer the biggest geek in the room.

Homicidal Necrophobe on a Rampage

I went to AMATYC focused on two things: getting ideas for teaching online this spring and finding good problems. I found plenty of help with both. I’ve posted a lot on online education this week. I have yet to get started with the problems people gave me. Prepare yourself.

Here is the setup for the first: You have a homicidal necrophobe locked up in a jail. The jail is four cells by four cells and all the other cells are filled. There is a key that opens every door, and one night when the jailor goes away for an hour, he comes back and finds all the doors open and everyone dead. Pretty gruesome. Here’s a picture where the X’s represent dead bodies.
The homicidal necrophobe was originally in the first cell that is now empty and is now in the last cell that has two bodies. In the hour the jailor was gone, the HN has killed everybody and then being unable to escape the dead bodies, got so scared he killed himself. The question is what path did the HN take through the jail? Note that he can’t move diagonally only horizontally and vertically, and each time he kills a prisoner he cannot reenter the room after he’s left.

I was given this problem by a sharp young teacher from NYC. Unfortnately, I've lost the notebook with his name and email. If you happen to be that sharp young teacher, I'd love to give you credit. Email me. Thanks for the great problem!

Guest Post--The three math-cateers

I made the mistake of asking Bonnie, Sue, and Sandy to write a post for YofX on the train ride home. This is the silliness the ensued. Sue and Sandy are irredeemable. Bonnie is just young and impressionable. Check out her cool calculator earrings. Makes me want to pierce my ears.



While Hendree was focused on online instruction, Sandy was focused on the irrational. Her favorite workshops were about e and π. Then she figured out what was really on her mind was eating pie. Now, what goes well with pie? Apparently a drink called a WooWoo. But be careful if you share one of these drinks with Sue or Bonnie – lots of giggling is sure to follow. Hendree wanted to participate in the giggle-causing behavior, but first he had to show his ID. He forgot to tell us he was really only 16 – we thought he only skipped a year or two in school, but the boy genius does in fact teach at Tunxis.
Sue was focused on developmental math, stats, and March Madness. She figured any workshop with Madness in the title was good for her since she got November Madness upon arriving in DC. (She did miss her family, though, (LOL)!) One of the major things we co-travelers had to be sure not to do was get into a revolving door with Sue. If we wanted our feet to survive the acceleration! The trip ended with our favorite activity – shopping!! In fact, Sue had so much fun shopping; she almost caused us all to miss the train. And what item did she need to procure, you ask? A cigar (she is a closet cigar-smoker!)
Where do you find the most outrageous desserts in DC? At a bookstore, naturally! The Dining Divas managed to eat tapas, pastas, diner food, Asian fusion, but not Ethiopian food. (We owe Hendree that one.) In addition to all the extracurricular activities, we all managed to attend some really good workshops and you will probably be blessed with our enthusiasm and new ideas. Please be kind to us because we are all sleep-deprived.
Post by Sandy, Bonnie, and Sue.

Top Ten Things I learned about Online Education at AMATYC

10-You need a policy/syllabus contract or quiz (or both)
9-Set due dates on weekdays (or every Sunday of your semester is ruined)
8-Build a good course slowly. Incrementally improve your course or you will quickly become overwhelmed.
7-There Is much more prep work at the beginning of the semester—preparation is everything
6-Have students teach themselves. This provides the content of your discussion, and reinforces concepts. Any teacher will tell you, you really come to know a subject when you can teach it.
5-Establish rules and expectations for communication
4-Don’t use a drop box. If you have a lot of assignments you’ll never find anything.
3-Let IT be IT. Don’t get caught up trouble-shooting every student’s tech setup
2-The Rule of 3: Have all the key info in the course in at least three places and everything in the course should be within three clicks of the homepage.
And the number 1 thing I learned about Online Education at AMATYC…
Don’t email angry.

photo: Mr. Stein on flickr

AMATYC or bust!

Sue and I headed down to Washington on the Amtrack with our Naugatuck buddies. Your seeing Sue and Sandy in the picture. It was a long ride, but very comfortable. I graded tests the whole way. I'll post some more after I attend some of the breakout sessions. I'm looking for good problems and tips on conducting math courses online.