Mathigon: A must-use resource

Okay math teachers... let's have a chat.  Mathigon is something you need to look into using today. 

I have a confession... since COVID teaching, I've been much less energetic about looking into the "next cool math tech tool".  But during this past winter break, I was able to spend a little time getting a bit more intimate with Mathigon, and I have fallen in love. (S/O to David Poras [@davidporas] for your help!)

Then, a few weeks ago at the SD STEM ED conference, I attended a presentation by Dr. Kevin Smith (@kevinsmithsd) and there was a lot of buzz from the attendees about the awesomeness of Mathigon.

I'd still call myself a Mathigon rookie, but I'd like to share a few things that I do like about Mathigon.  I wrote about a few of the things for the SDCTM winter newsletter. 

Recently in advanced algebra 2, we were working on extracting nth roots of variable expressions.  While Mathigon didn't help with the variable parts of the expression, it was very useful when looking at the integer values.

Example problem:

Rewrite each expression by extracting all possible roots.

Mathigon provided a very useful visual with the prime factor circles.

If you've never worked with prime factor circles, I invite you to open a blank Polypad in Mathigon and play around for a few minutes. In less than 1 minute, I was able to show students how the prime factor circles work and had them thinking about why we could extract a factor of 16 (2^4).  Something that has always been fairly abstract for students now has a very clear, neat visual model.

I'm super excited to see where else I can use Mathigon.  

P.S.  A recent update allows users to split algebra tiles.  WHAT?!?!!

Go check out Mathigon today!