The #Probchat Treasury: Every Problem That’s Ever Been Chatted

In February of 2015 a twitter conversation led to the creation of #probchat, a twitter chat about solving problems. Each week we would talk about a different problem and how students may approach it. The problems each week came from different sources around the internet in order to demonstrate the vast array of interesting problems available across the web. It was a bit of a struggle finding problems each week, but I think I was able to find a collection of problems with a number of good characteristics. It seemed like it would be a good idea to have all of those problems referenced on the web, so this post.

#probchat Problem Characteristics

Each problem was one I found somewhere on the internet (except for Basketball Practice). After looking at all of them, it seems that the problems I settled on each week had the following characteristics:

• Required little more than elementary math knowledge
• Even people with advanced math knowledge would not find any immediate and obvious solution strategies
• Had a realistic context or story which inspired a genuine desire for a mathematical solution
• Had a context or story simple enough to be easily read on twitter
• Could be approached with different problem solving strategies

Is This The End?

For now #probchat is on hiatus. Having a new job and a new baby has made it hard to have free time in the evenings, and the slowchats that I tried in November never really seemed to get much traction. After the NCTM conference in San Francisco I may see if I can give it the time it deserves, or see if I can develop a format that garners interest and isn’t demanding. If you have any ideas about how it could successful again, let me know in the comments!

#Probchat Dates:

Feb 15, 2015 | Feb 22, 2015 | Mar 1, 2015 | Mar 8, 2015 | Mar 22, 2015 | Mar 29, 2015 | Apr 5, 2015 | Apr 12, 2015 | Apr 19, 2015 | Apr 19, 2015 | Apr 26, 2015 | May 3, 2015 | May 10, 2015 | May 17, 2015 | May 24, 2015 | Jun 7, 2015 | Jun 14, 2015 | Jun 21, 2015 | Sep 6, 2015 | Sep 13, 2015 | Sep 20, 2015 | Sep 27, 2015 | Oct 4, 2015 | Oct 18, 2015 | Oct 25, 2015 | Nov 1, 2015 | Nov 8, 2015 | Nov 15, 2015 | Nov 22, 2015 | Nov 29, 2015

#Probchat Problems: