'Too hard' Scottish Higher Maths exam
Although I live in Scotland, I'm not directly involved with the curriculum for Scottish secondary mathematics (worth mentioning that the education system in Scotland is separate from the rest of the UK...
Exploration idea #498
I'm always on the look out for interesting mathematical 'nuggets' that might lead to something suitable for a Maths HL or SL student Exploration (IA task). Recently, I came across the following fact about...
'Amazing' Calculus
Even from the narrow view of just considering the syllabus contents for Maths HL & Maths SL, it is clear that the study of calculus is a very important component of both courses - it is the 'largest'...
one week to go until exams
Here is an activity that I have found to be very effective revision for Maths HL exams. I have written 10 exam questions for section A of a Paper 1 practice (mock) exam and and another 10 questions for...
Geometry problem in work of art
During the years 1795 to 1805 the famous English poet, printmaker and painter William Blake (1757-1827) created a color print entitled Newton, shown below. The work of art depicts a naked Isaac Newton...
pi day 2015
If you accept the American style of writing a date (month first, then the day) then today you'll be celebrating Day - when the date 3.14 matches the first few digits of . But this year it's a bit more...
A Galton Board
Some day I'm going to build my very own Galton Board (also known as a quincunx). It's a fantastic device for experimentally demonstrating a binomial distribution or binomical coefficients. Without a real...
Exploration idea #497
I recently learned of the following interesting property for a parabola: Many students do not know what the directrix of a parabola is - which is a bit of a shame because then they are not aware of the...
Exploration idea #496
Today in Maths HL class we were using a model of a regular tetrahedron (right triangular pyramid with four faces that are equilateral triangles) to help visualize a particular problem in trigonometry....
maths competition
I had a very enjoyable time this past weekend in London at the International Schools Mathematics Teachers Foundation (ISMTF) senior mathematics competition that was organized and hosted by the American...