Fun with the Olympic Rings

I'm constantly in the process of generating content for mathematics class. I like to focus on one problem which incorporates a lot of different skills and comes with a number of questions exploring the problem. This type of problem solving is more aligned with the Common Core, and ties in learning from all over the curriculum. The belief is it creates learning environments which engender thinking, and move away from the more formulaic mathematics courses.

This type of teaching in a juvenile corrections facility can be a bit of a struggle at first. Many students I meet and teach are struggling learners who need to relearn the foundations before embarking on such tough problems. These open ended problems can be confidence killers, and students want to shutdown before they even start because there isn't an obvious solution with an obvious pattern of strategies to follow.

To this I say, too bad. If there is one thing I am preparing these kids for upon their departure from the facility, it's the real world. And we are not talking about the type of world where everything will be easy and readily available for them. It will be a struggle. They will have to work harder at both school and jobs to just keep up with their peers. They will have to constantly be making decisions and looking out for themselves, because there is no support for them.

When students start with me they will be challenged, they will have to think, be creative, explain how they are approaching tasks, ask for more information, ask for resources, in essence, makes things happen. This means as a teacher you have to be flexible, you have to let students test ideas even when you know they are wrong. You have to keep them motivated to keep working through the problem after experiencing failure. It's not easy.

Today's problem is another geometry problem. It's a simple diagram of the Olympic Rings with questions attached. There are no numbers provided, no strategies delineated, nothing except a few challenging questions. I'll offer little to no assistance to students, unless they ask for resources. I imagine a ruler and some trigonometry can do the trick. The first challenge I foresee is deciding whether the rings are equal, then where the midpoint of the circle is, then how to decide how to measure the length of the arcs, and then the angle of the arcs. Every student should have a different solution at the end of class.