Let's All Teach a Course Based on #MTBoS

My Honors Problem Solving Seminar is an elective that is new for me and my school this year, and although I definitely brought many topics to the course, I must admit that my plans often get thrown out the window thanks to the MTBoS. One blog post or one tweet that I read before school could completely change my plan for class that day. There are so many things that I wanted to teach in my regular math classes, but never had the time. Now I can share with interested students all of the cool topics that are not part of the traditional curriculum. So I say, everyone, let's all teach a flexible #MTBoS course to our kids! Now is the time to get your elective out there to be approved by your department chairs or administration. My students all double up with this course and another math class. The prerequisite is Pre-Calculus or any honors math course.

Below is a list of many of the topics I covered first semester.

Things that I brought to the class (i.e., used before #MTBoS) but have mostly blogged about so are now out there:

Problem Sets These will last two semesters.
Figurate Numbers
Tower of Hanoi (I still need to blog about this.)
Art Benjamin's Mathemagic
The Monty Hall Problem
The Radioactive Cube Problem
The Art of Problem Solving
Die Hard 3 The Jug Problem
Florida Mu Alpha Theta Test Bank

Amazing things that I've built entire classes around using #MTBoS

Rubik's Cube (This was a long unit)
Sam Shah's Fistbump problem
Mr. Orr's Pumpkin Time Bomb Activity
Alex Overwijk's great little card problem
This tweet, below, which was a response to how to make a Sierpinski Triangle, which one of my students made (see above) as her final project.

Videos I've shown or problems I've given from #MTBoS

The Bridge Problem
The Fold and Cut Theorem
The Math in Pixar Movies
Cannibals and Missionaries Problem
Einstein's Riddle
Anything from Jo Morgan's Resourceaholic
Any puzzles from Emma Bell
Corbett Maths 5-a-day
The 3 Hats Problem or 4 Men in Hats Problem
Another Prisoner Hat Problem
Math major talks about fear
These Challenges

I know there's more that I've forgotten. I'm looking forward to Part II next semester!