Mathematically-Themed Icebreakers 2: Hiding a Favorite Theorem in a Classroom Icebreaker
This week, we discuss an activity that arose by turning a favorite theorem (in this case, a result from Ramsey Theory ) into a first-day activity that got students flexing their mathematical muscles right from the start of class. This Icebreaker was created by one of our post-docs: Kris Hollingsworth. This activity works well both in the classroom and over Zoom breakout rooms; in fact, it is the first activity we designed from scratch for the remote teaching environment. This activity has been used in an Introduction to Proofs class with 160 students with great success, but would be appropriate in almost any mathematics course. We'll first describe the activity and how we would expect it to work (and maybe you can play along to try and solve the math as well!). Then, we'll prove the underlying theorem in a way that can be done in class and will finish with some possible suggestions for follow-up discussion. 1) Start by breaking the class into small groups of 4-5 students eac