Charlotte Teacher’s Circle

The Charlotte Teachers’ Circle, a club for Charlotte area middle and high school teachers was founded in order to provide a social environment for professional growth, especially growth in problem solving skills. The organizers hope that teachers will find mathematical problem solving an enjoyable activity that will find its place in their classrooms. The meetings take place monthly. Typically, the TC meets on the same day as the Charlotte Math Club for high school students and the Mecklenburg Math Club (for students in grades four to seven).

The meetings take place at Providence Day School and UNC Charlotte. To get to the meetings at PDS, follow signs pointing to Charlotte Math Club (CMC). If you have a colleague who would enjoy this endeavor, please pass this information along. We’re especially anxious to attract the region’s MATHCOUNTS coaches and high school math team coaches to the teacher’s circle. If there are several teachers at your school who would like to participate, that’s even better. If you have students who are interested in problem solving, both the Mecklenburg Math Club (grades 4-6) and the Charlotte Math Club (grades 7-12) meetings will be going on down the hall at the same time, so please bring them.

Math Circles is an idea that was born in Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century. Budapest and Moscow have had active Math Circles programs for many years. The purpose of Math Circles is to give middle school and high school students/teachers an opportunity to interact, on a scholarly level, with university professors and one another. Participants are introduced to novel and exciting mathematical ideas---ones that they could discuss in their classroom work.

The participants are thus given a glimpse of what mathematical research is. Math Circles sessions are interactive. The participants are as much a part of the exchange of information as is the instructor. Participants frequently go to the board to explain their ideas. Participants collaborate in groups of two or three to work out ideas presented in class.

Here’s a little taste of the problems from earlier meetings.

Find four different digits a,b,c, and d such that a/b + c/d is less than 1 but otherwise as large as possible.

Consider the number N=123456789101112.....585960. What is the largest number that can be produced by crossing out 100 digits of N?

Use each nonzero digit 1 ,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, and 9 exactly once to build three prime numbers A, B, and C whose sum is less than 1000.

For more problems from previous meetings, see the Charlotte Teachers Circle

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