It's official; the Greater Nebraska Math Teachers Circle season has begun. Over 50 math enthusiasts gathered in Kearney before the NATM fall conference for math and munchies at the first Greater Nebraska Math Teachers Circle meeting of the year. Math Teachers Circles bring together mathematicians and teachers with the goal of providing an opportunity to discover and share with students the excitement and richness of problem solving in deep yet accessible mathematical topics.
At the NATM conference, two parallel sessions were held for teachers in order to accommodate a broad audience: secondary teachers investigated results of squaring and taking the square root of the lengths of sides of triangles while elementary teachers looked at the geometry standards and how to help teachers and students communicate and think critically about geometric concepts.
Primarily Math veterans Andrew Boone and Jessica Dickes of Gretna Public Schools presented “Geometry Standards Take Shape” to elementary teachers and administrators.
Alicia Davis of Lincoln Public Schools, Dan Schaben of Arapahoe Public School and UNL mathematics graduate student Kelsey Wells presented “Power to the Triangle!” to secondary teachers and educators. They asked, what does it mean to "square" a triangle? What about "undoing the square" of a triangle? The presenters also investigated the topic using GeoGebra.
Watch for more information about a Greater Nebraska Math Teachers Circle event coming to your area.
Other Math Teachers Circles in Nebraska convene regularly in Lincoln and in Omaha.
For contact information and dates visit http://scimath.unl.edu/mathteacherscircle.
Special thanks to all who contributed to the Greater Nebraska Math Teachers Circle: NATM and the Center for Science, Mathematics and Computer Education at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.