Like a Good Puzzle? Try the TED-Ed Dark Coin Riddle

Have you seen the new Dark Coin Riddle? Give it a try, but also check out the TED-Ed lesson to go even further with it.

Want to try some more? Give these a try with your classes!

Find Student-Taught Math Lessons and Riddles on Padlet #StudentTeachingStudents

I blogged about my Ted-Ed Project here, but I used Padlet to create a visually pleasing and easy way to sort the student-made videos. Click below to get a glimpse at all of them. 

On Learning Grit from a Student

I recently discovered that Popular Mechanics, a magazine I remember hearing about from when I was a kid, has a riddle of the week, given by Jay Bennett. I used to love Click and Clack's riddle of the week from Car Talk (anyone remember Dewey Cheetham and Howe? I am dating myself again!), so I was pretty excited when I found Jay's puzzles.

I decided that we would dedicate a day to going through the problems in my Honors Problem Solving Seminar. It was pretty cool to see that we had already solved a majority of them, and even cooler that there were a plethora of ones that we haven't solved yet.

When we got to "The Airplane Problem," I saw it was deemed "hard."

I remembered when this came out as a Ted-Ed Riddle (see video at the top), I heard it was one of the hardest riddles. So I never watched it.

It's interesting, considering that on day 1 of Problem-Solving, we talk so much about grit and struggling to work through a problem, and yet, I really did not want to tackle the airplane problem.

There are definitely times when we can't solve a problem in class, and we have to look it up. I think it's good for students to see that the teacher can't solve every problem, and sometimes there is a twist that we just never would have thought of. 

Well, my students dug into the problem. We talked it through for a while and after about 15 minutes, I said, are we ready for the answer?

K, a great thinker, said, "I need more time." She was on to something. OK, I said and started shuffling my papers, cleaning my desk, graded a question or two...I was done. I couldn't do it, so I stopped.  A few times, I stopped the students, feeling bad that the problem was deemed so hard and maybe they were 'wasting' time, thinking maybe it was one of those impossible ones that you just don't totally understand even after watching the video, i.e., I'm still lost on the three gods riddle.

I said, "Should we watch the answer?" K said, "Wait, I need more time." OK, I said and really began to look at her work. Within a few minutes, she stepped back, admired her work,  said, "I think I finished", and proceeded to explain step-by-step, how to solve the problem that I gave up on. 

SPOILER ALERT! Here is her work:

As we watched the answer on the video, K nodded at each step, as it matched her solution. I thought, wow, K just taught me a thing or two about grit today. K put the "possible" in "impossible" for me. 

I am so proud of K's accomplishments in this class. It's great to learn things from your students, both knowledge, and perseverance! 

Can you solve the 5 Robbers Problem? Students Teaching Students

I am very proud of my student in my Problem-Solving class, who, as his final exam project, created a TED-Ed lesson that is a take on the Pirates and 100 Gold Coins puzzle. The task was to model it after a TED-Ed riddle, and he did exactly that. Here is his full lesson, complete with the 5 multiple choice questions in the "Think Section," and "Dig Deeper" and "Discuss" sections. My student used http://www.videoscribe.co/ to complete the lesson, which made animation fairly simple. His voiceover was really well done. This is the first year I have done this project with my students, and I would definitely change some things in the future, such as having them start it earlier. Here is his full TED-Ed lesson. 

Can you solve the Five Robbers Logic Puzzle?

Here is the project description and rubric.

I am currently working on a TED-Ed innovative project that I am calling #StudentsTeachingStudents. Below is a Padlet that I am working on to include lessons from students who create videos to teach other students. You can find other student projects on there. My plan is to create a handbook on best practices for students teaching lessons through video and TED-Ed. If you are interested in having your students create lessons and have them posted on this site, please let me know!

Ted-Ed River-Crossing Riddle

Yesterday, a new Ted-Ed River-Crossing Riddle came out. Here is what it looks like, below, on the Ted-Ed site.

If you've not seen Ted-Ed riddles, you are in for a treat. I've written about them here and here and here. This is the second Ted-Ed riddle that I've worked with Ted-Ed to create. It's been so much fun, and the kids love working on them. I love that anyone can customize a Ted-Ed lessons. I will blog very soon about how to customize a lesson, as I just did one and assigned it for homework. It was super easy. For now, enjoy the riddle!

Can You Solve the Locker Riddle? A Ted-Ed Lesson and How to Write One

Two of my favorite problems have become Ted-Ed riddle videos. I wrote about the Ted-Ed Lesson "Einstein's Riddle" here. I worked with the creator, Dan Van der Vieren, the week before his lesson came out when he taught my class how to solve the Rubik's Cube. I was so impressed with his riddle that I asked him how he was able to create it. He told me about the nomination form, and I filled it out and wrote about the problem that I do every year in my classes, The Locker Problem.

The idea, of course, is not to write out all 1000 lockers, but to create a smaller, similar problem and look for a pattern. I use this to teach my students about tenacity, collaboration, and the value of using the solution to a small problem to solve a bigger one.

Within a few weeks, I heard back and was scheduled for a 30-minute interview with someone from Ted-Ed, and we talked about how to change the problem to have a story line, and having something in the lockers that remain open. I brought it up to my Problem-Solving class, and we ended up making a riddle that would involve having to solve a problem to earn an inheritance. Once that was done, I sat one night and wrote the riddle, very excited that the number of words in the sentence that I wanted in the lockers was ten, and that there were exactly ten lockers open. Often when I give this problem, I ask, "Which lockers are touched exactly twice?" So I threw that piece in their as well. As an author of a Ted-Ed riddle, you also need to come up with 5 multiple-choice questions, 3 open-ended questions, additional resources to explore, and a guided discussion question. 

The people at Ted-Ed are awesome! They are extremely professional and always got back to me within 24 hours, offering advice and helping me with any questions I had. And the animation is THE BEST!! Who cannot love that little girl??

Within a few months, it was up! The idea is that teachers can even customize a lesson of their own with the riddle. Here is the actual link to the entire Ted-Ed page that contains the riddle: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/can-you-solve-the-locker-riddle-lisa-winer.

My students LOVE these riddles, the first five of which can be found here. They beg for more. Do you have a good riddle? Consider nominating yourself and writing one for Ted-Ed.