Activities, Writings, and Videos by Debra K. Borkovitz
The handshake problem is an old chestnut — if everyone in the room shook hands with everyone else, how many handshakes would there be? Then generalize. What I have to add to teaching the problem is a handout (doc version, … Read More
This is a great first day of class activity, which works well with math phobic students (I use it in a math for elementary teachers class). Students make a list 1:00, 2:00, etc. on a piece of paper — however … Read More
This is a classic problem solving activity that I first saw many years ago in Mathematics: A Human Endeavor. The NCTM has a nice applet to test cases one at a time. Since I like playing with Excel and … Read More
I start this activity by handing out buckets of tiles (any small objects will do) and asking students to take 10. They can sort their ten tiles into any number of piles, and their “prize” is the product of the … Read More