To bring the different course elements together, each child had to work individually or in teams of 2-3 on a substantial mathematical problem that would require experimentation, pattern recognition, conjectures and proofs - these were facets of mathematics stressed on throughout the course. Some of the problem statements are shown below.
Our students spent a total of 6-7 hours of class time working on these problems with minimal guidance from our side. Jayasree Ma'am and I observed the processes that kids were using to approach the problem and saw how they were recognising patterns and coming up with conjectures. At the end, each child/team had to come up and give a 10-15 minute presentation to the class on their problem statement, approach, solution and challenges faced. Photographs of the different teams in action are shown below.
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| The leapfrog team using the numbered tokens to simulate pegs and work out the problem. This team of 2 showed exceptional teamwork and enthusiasm in their project! |
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| The overhang puzzle team working with plastic tiles to simulate their problem and arrive at conjectures! |
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| The sprouts team playing the game to figure out the intricacies involved! This team's energy was really high and they went beyond the given problem statement to add their own constraints and conditions and make the game more interesting! |
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| The pile splitting problem team discussing their ideas. |
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| The Polya strike out team explaining their thought process to Jayasree Ma'am |
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