The Sum of our Knowledge

Many times, we use the same old icebreakers at the beginning of a class:  go around the room, introduce yourself, your major, a hobby or something interesting about yourself . What if instead, we could get our students working together and engaging in mathematical problem-solving from the get-go? Today’s post is the first in a four-part series where we'll present several ideas and strategies to accomplish this, most of which are appropriate for any level of mathematics course. Review Dominos We have found that this activity works great in many situations-- Our favorites uses: An icebreaker on the first day of class, while also reviewing material from a previous class. Low stakes group work to practice basic computation relating to newly learned material on an average class day A group warm-up, reviewing material from a previous day that is crucial to know before beginning class. A small-group project before an exam review. This activity requires a small amount of preparation up fro...

COME ON DOWWWWNNNN!!!!!!   You’ve been chosen to be a contestant on Let’s Make a Deal!   You’re now standing in front of three doors -- behind one of these doors is a car, and behind each of the other two is a goat. Monty, the host, says, “Pick a door! If it has the car behind it, you’ll drive it home today!”  You choose door #1, and feel really good about your choice.  The host then opens door #3,  which has a goat behind it, and asks “Do you want to switch doors?”  Question: What is the probability that you will win the car now that you know there was a goat behind door #3? Should you switch? Assumptions: Before the show, the car was equally likely to be placed behind any of the three doors. Once you make your selection of door #1, Monty will choose to reveal what is behind one of the other two doors, but will definitely not show you where the car is. Update: 11/19/20: read below for the solution.

I was honored earlier this month to be recognized by Stephen Wolfram as one of the recipients of the Wolfram Innovator Award at the annual Wolfram Technology Conference.   (Here is the official announcement of the Award Winners . ) This award is given annually to educational and scientific pioneers that use Wolfram’s Mathematica ™ software to bring the future to today.   The awarded project was the result of a large number of people at the University of Minnesota working to lower the cost of college attendance by replacing expensive textbooks with technology better suited to the needs of 21 st century students. In addition, this technological innovation has improved the way we deliver instruction at MathCEP . The project, now known as the Minnesota Online Learning System (MOLS), delivers assessments to students using the Mathematica platform. It replaced a publisher’s automated homework system initially, and then expanded to house the University of Minnesota’s math placeme...