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Math Fair
MATH 160 at the University of Alberta is a contents course for students
in Elementary Education. One of the components of the course is a Math
Fair. It has three stages. In the first stage, the university students
put on a Math Fair for one another. This allows for the rectification of
errors and the smoothing over of rough spots. Then the university
students take the show on the road to an elementary school, and set up
the Math Fair for the kids. Finally, the kids put on a Math Fair on
their own.
What makes a good Math Fair project? My colleague Ted Lewis and I, who
masterminded this concept, set out two criteria. First, the project must
involving problem-solving rather than theory-presentation. Second, the
problem should not be the type where the statement is put on a poster,
and the participants bring out pencils and papers to work on them. it
must be interactive, with movable pieces. In other words, we want a
mechanical puzzle.
Students at all level are discouraged from using commercially available
products. The university students in particular are taught to steal
ideas from books (giving due acknowledgement of course), and turn them
into presentable projects. Thus they are involved in the process of
inventing mechanical puzzles.
Our success is phenomenal. The list of schools waiting for our classes
to visit them grows so long that in recent year, the mountain comes to Mohammed
instead. In other words, we rent an auditorium on campus and
invite the school to visit our students' Math Fair. However, the numbers
of kids involved are so big that we have to rent another facilities so
that I can entertain half of them with a lecture while the other half
explore the various booths in the Math Fair. Then the two groups switch
over halfway through, and I have to deliver the same lecture again. |
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