When I set up my maths circle in January, I planned for it to be an hour long. Four months later, I'm finding that 2 or 3 activities with a 5 minute video to round off are taking at least an hour and a half and sometimes well over 2 hours! Luckily I work with home educators who have a very flexible attitude towards time, which helps, but I'd still be interested in how long other people spend. Generally I end up moving the group on before some of the members feel they have finished with an activity, but I want to avoid others getting bored. I guess I think that leaving them wanting to do something more is a better place to be in than feeling they've done something too long.
How long would you allow for a typical course problem? How many activities would you try to fit into an hour long session?
Answer by Maria Droujkova , Make math your own, to make your own math · May 07, 2014 at 11:35 PM
@juggling_ginny - this is a really individual question. I usually prepare a lot of activities, to make sure I don't run out, but go with the flow of what kids do.
Answer by babyhclimber · May 01, 2014 at 07:59 PM
I don't run a math circle but we've attended a couple at A&M university and they are scheduled for 2 hours. They break it into 3-4 activities where the professor leads or demonstrates and then they break up and work before coming back to discuss and then moving on to the next. They give 30 minutes for each activity but if something is more interesting or taking longer they will just eliminate the 4th and work longer... And the target grade range is 6th-12th thus discussions by some of the high school kids can be quite interesting and quite long... So it really depends on the age & motivation level. But seems like if you only have one hour I wouldn't count on doing more than 2 unless you know they are pretty easy or fast moving...