Friday Five #5? It will be a long time before I get this excited again (#55, I expect).
- Alex Overwijk’s (@AlexOverwijk) website, Slam Dunk Math, is a fabulous collection of resources. I need to set aside time to work back through older posts. The most recent, on the coordinate grid, is exceptionally well-described. To pique your interest, check out the visual below. First words through my head? ‘Genius idea! Love it!’
2. I was late to the party about Don Steward’s website. Two recent favourites I’ve discovered via Jo Morgan and Fawn Nguyen: circle remainders and what’s the question?
3. David Butler (@DavidKButlerUoA) coordinates a puzzles and games gathering at the University of Adelaide called One Hundred Factorial. The website includes links to the online forum and to the Twitter hashtag. To give an idea of the types of puzzles, here are two of my favourites that David recently blogged about: Four alternatives to the four fours and Spotless dice. A teaser is below.
4. David Bressoud (former MAA President) posted What we say/What they hear in February which has a synopsis of a paper that shows (in David’s words) ‘the sharp distinction between what was seen [as the important key points] in [a] lecture by those who are familiar with the material and what was seen by those who are still struggling to build an understanding’. The burning question for me is what we do to close that gap effectively.
5. If you aren’t a subscriber to Ben Orlin‘s Math With Bad Drawings, I recommend you fix that immediately. He draw/writes about mathematical concepts, the culture and the nature of mathematics, learning, and just generally related stuff. Two of my recent favourites: Symbols that math urgently needs to adopt and A new favourite puzzle.
Wonder in Mathematics 
Don Steward’s “what proportion is orange” problem is great. It really made my students think. The final result surprised them.
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