Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Results of First Math Notations Contest!!

"It was such a pleasure for me to see students so excited about math. Great job, Dave!"
Maureen Capuzzi, Montville HS

"I thought you might be interested to know that the moms appreciated your contest enough to ask for another one---for next week!"
Denise, Decatur Area Homeschoolers

"we all had a few 'a ha!' moments, which I think is the best part of math..."
ecv at fhs

And the envelopes please...

FIRST PLACE (11 out of 11 pts)

ARCADIA HS, Arcadia, CA

Advisor: Kerry King


SECOND PLACE
MONTVILLE Twp HS, Montville, NJ
Advisor: Maureen Capuzzi



THIRD PLACE (Tie)
FAYETTEVILLE MANLIUS HS, Manlius, NY

Advisor: Kate Nowak

FLORIDA MU ALPHA THETA TEAM, Tallahassee, Vero Beach, Fl
Advisors: Steve Friedlander, Brandi Williams

WYEDEAN HS, Chepstow, England
Advisor: Rhys Jeremiah



FOURTH PLACE (Tie)

DECATUR AREA HOMESCHOOLERS, Decatur, Il

Advisor: Denise Gaskins

WALLINGTON JR/SR HS, Wallington, NJ
Advisor: Stephanie Regetz


FIFTH PLACE (Tie)

FORT VANCOUVER HS, Vancouver, WA

Advisor: Nathan Shields

LAKE STEVENS HS, Lake Stevens, WA
Advisor: Kaleb Allinson

TAHOMA HS, Maple Valley, WA
Advisor: Dave Wright

Congratulations to our other participating teams, some of whom consisted of middle schoolers. This contest proved very ambitious for students below grade 11 but I hope it was a valuable learning experience for all. In the future, I plan to have separate contests for middle and secondary schools. THE NEXT FREE CONTEST IS SCHEDULED FOR APRIL OR MAY - STAY TUNED!

I also plan on posting some of the contest problems over the next few days. This has been an interesting experience for me and I learned much from the comments of the advisors and students. Next time I will limit the time to 30-45 minutes for ease of scheduling! If you think you might be interested in our next contest, you can always email me early and let me know. (dmarain at gmail dot com).

2 comments:

Kate said...

Hi Dave! Thanks for coordinating this, I know it was an enjoyable and educational experience. Our team ended up working on 7b the next day with their computer science teacher and finally reaching a solution (not that it counted, of course, but they were interested!)

In the future it might be nice if it's possible (given whatever legal/other considerations you have) to print the kids' names. All I did was work at my desk while they used my room, I feel weird about having my name printed with their accomplishment. FrankZ, SteveS, ScottC, AlmirA, MattR...good work!

Congratulations to all the teams - it was a tough contest! Great job!

Dave Marain said...

Kate,
Thanks for the kind words.
You surmised correctly that I was 'erring on the side of caution' by not printing students' names. When I ran these kinds of contests on the Math Dept home page in my school, I recall getting permission to display the winners' names (or parents had signed off on some district web permission form). I felt that a blog which is read worldwide is in a somewhat different category but I'm probably being overly cautious.

I seem to recall there are legal guidelines out there regarding the use of full names and/or pictures, particularly of minor children (13 and under?). Since I wasn't sure of this, I took the safe route. I do think we've all become overly paranoid about these risks since names and pictures routinely appear in the print media and most newspapers have an online searchable version but I'll defer to the legal eagles out there who know current law.

My instinct is that displaying first names and last initials as you've done is fine! If other advisors want me to do this, I will edit the Results page.

From my experience with other math leagues, it is standard procedure to list the name of the school and the advisor - that's why I did that. Even though your students took the contest, performed well and deserve the recognition you still had to bring them together, get it organized, proctor it and electronically communicate with me several times, on top of all your other professional obligations! I appreciate your support for your "kids" but teachers deserve recognition too...

Once again, congratulate your students for me.