While things might be chilly outside the Frisch math department is far from hibernating. Besides the exciting teaching occurring in a typical school day, there is a great deal of math being explored both by our students and teachers outside of the classroom.
The Frisch Math Team has just taken the 5th out of 6 New Jersey math league contest exam. It is an annual series of contests which ask questions not typical in a high school math classroom. On this past exam one question was “ Suppose a hotel has rooms numbered 1- 14 and keys also numbered 1-14 BUT the room numbers and key numbers do not have to match. Instead, the keys are assigned to the rooms so that the sum of the room number and the key number is always an exact multiple of 3. How many ways can this be done?” Not your average problem ...right? The answer is at the end of this blog. Many of our mathematically inclined cougars on this popular “ team” have been getting 6/ 6 on these contests which is nothing less than incredible considering that they only have 30 minutes each contest to complete all 6 questions.
Even students not on our “Math Team” are welcome to take the American Math Contest (AMC 10 and 12) later this month. The AMC is a 75 minute multiple choice exam to identify the very best math students in the country. The AMC 10 covers basic algebra and geometry. The AMC 12 covers all of high school mathematics with the exception of calculus. Those who qualify based on their scores in the AMC 12 are given the opportunity to compete in the International Math Olympiad. We hope Frisch will be represented!
Students are not the only ones busy outside of class time. The teachers of the math department are busy learning about the latest online math programs in their weekly tech meetings. They recently had an online session with a representative from KnowRe. This coming week they are having a representative from “Think Through Math” give an in-person presentation to our whole department. Texas Instruments and Ten Marks are other vendors they will be meeting in the Spring as they continue to explore the best online math platforms for our students.
Additionally, to continue to foster their own professional growth, several members of our department will be returning to New Brunswick this March to attend the 29th Annual “ Good Ideas in Teaching PreCalc and…” conference through the DIMAS Center, the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, at Rutgers University. We are honored that our Math Department Chair Mrs. Sabrina Bernath has been chosen to present at this conference for the first time. Her topic is, “The Use of Technology for Differentiated Instruction in Algebra I and Algebra 2”. She is looking forward to sharing the successful and innovative approaches already being used at Frisch.
Below is a picture from last year’s PreCalc conference at Rutgers of several Frisch math teachers. They loved being students once again!
It is only March so there is still a great deal more math in the coming weeks. Students and teachers are working hard to have our most productive and successful year yet. By the way the answer to the question about the hotel rooms and the keys is 345,600 but I am sure you already knew that.
