Congratulations Anne!

The Center for Mathematics Achievement would like to offer our congratulations to our director, Dr. Anne Collins, on being awarded the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE) 2013 Nadine Bezuk Award for Excellence in Leadership and Service in Mathematics Teacher Education!

From left to right: Dr. Nadine Bezuk, Dr. Anne Collins, President of AMTE Dr. Marilyn Strutchens, and Awards Committee Chair Dr. Doug Corey.

We will be posting a video of Anne's presentation soon.  Congratulations Anne!

Developing Number Sense

As our students enter middle school and beyond, too often they lose opportunities to continue developing their number sense. Students at this age tend to appreciate more and more the beauty behind numbers, our number system, and the patterns and relationships among them. For this month’s blog I am resurrecting some fun number questions from the Mathematical Digest, Term 1, 1994, Number 105. This mathematical digest has a wealth of information and challenges to be solved. Enjoy!

Anne

Match the clues with the numbers in the box.

Clues

1. An odd cube
2. The first prime 
3. The fourth triangular number
4. Srinivasa Ramanujan* said that this number was equal to (9²  + 19² ÷ 22)²⁵
5. The second perfect number
6. The smallest odd abundant number
7. 6! + 5! + 4! + 3! + 2! + 1!
8. The first number after 1 to be both a square and a triangular number
9. The ninth highly composite number
10. A three digit palindromic square number
11. G. H. Hardy’s taxi cab’s number 

There are twelve numbers in the box for the eleven clues.  Which number does not have a clue written for it?  This number is featured in a very well-known book written in 1726. What is the name of the book? 

*Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) has been described as the greatest mathematician India has produced in the last 1000 years. His work has only just started to be appreciated and understood. His formulae are being used in areas such as polymer chemistry, statistical mechanics, computers and even cancer research.

Happy New Year!

Lesley's Center for Mathematics Achievement has some exciting offerings in the upcoming year.  These include monthly Saturday workshops, a Dine and Discuss focusing on the CCSS and PARCC, graduate level math courses in Brockton, Quincy, and Springfield, collaborations with UEI and MoS, and a Summer Institute.  We are excited for the upcoming new year and continuing our work with mathematics teachers and education.  We hope that you can join us for some of these events.  If you want more information, you can find all of it at: CMA Homepage!

And to start of the new year...
How many factors does 2013 have?  How many of the factors are prime factors?