Mathematics challenge as a motivational tool for high school students

Hello friends and followers of educational content, this time I want to share with you all my thoughts about the challenge of mathematics where I teach as a high school teacher.

It is really a challenge for the students of the Anibal Rodriguez Educational Unit to expose their creative ideas about how they can apply mathematical knowledge in an innovative and creative way, especially considering that mathematics is in all aspects of our daily lives.

From what was presented by these students in this math challenge, tutoring was provided in various lines of learning, which are the following:

• Playing with mathematics.
• Productive and innovative mathematics.
• Decolonizing and sovereign mathematics.
• Challenging mathematics.
• Artemat.
• Techno-mathematics.
• Matebots.
• Pythagoras, beyond the theorem.

It was to be expected that the students chose some lines of research and learning that would make the mathematics challenge a fun and entertaining moment, without losing academic quality when it comes to presenting the topics.

Some projects were presented from the perspectives of the learning line: "playing with mathematics", these projects were based on playful games, where basically a dice is thrown and the students advance in the positions of the ludo, in the square that is assigned to the members who are playing, they have to solve the mathematical exercise that is assigned to that square, being able to be among the candidates to solve first degree equations and exercises applying the Pythagorean theorem.

Another of the projects presented was in the "matebots" research line, under this line of research the students presented a project based on a laser whose programming is based on binary codes and that helps to optimize the resolution of some everyday problems such as the measurement of some lengths.

As a teacher of these students, I was very satisfied with the performance shown at the time of demonstrating their projects and the way in which they approached the mathematical topics associated with these lines of research.

Recommended reference

International Youth Math Challenge