Patterns and Relations

1. Introduction By the end of grade 8, students will have seen linear relations and solved problems involving linear relations, but that is it. Patterns show up on math contests in many forms and this alone will not quite prepare a student to do those types of problems. One of the biggest issues is that students are shown exactly how to solve for things like intercepts and slope, but then they have no real concept of what they are trying to find, only a method for getting a right answer. The important thing for linear equations is for students to understand what the function of each component is of a linear equation, and how it affects the visual representation of the equation. You want them to know which part amounts to a translation of the line, and which part amounts to how much the line is rotated. For advanced students you want to break past this and teach them anything that they are capable of learning about patterns and relations. A good place to start pushing student boundaries at the middle school level would be to move away from the idea of the equation of the pattern and work on pattern recognition. You can get students to recognize the difference between arithmetic and geometric patterns on their own without formally knowing that they have done so:

This strays from the curriculum quite a bit, but it is definitely within the grasp of middle school students. Because the curriculum focuses on just linear equations, the students really only get a narrow view of what patterns are and what the purpose of learning them is, which can be very frustrating for students who are trying to see the big picture. It leaves no room for students to be creative with the things that they learn. By presenting students with different types of number patterns like this, we are challenging them to look and find the interesting things that are there, rather than giving them something where they follow a given set of steps to find the answer. Once the student is able to understand what is going on with these patterns we can get them to think about ways to represent what is going on mathematically, which gets them thinking outside of their comfort zone. We can use this to not only

find things like intercepts and slopes of linear equations, but also intercepts with parabolas and slopes of tangents. Some students might not be ready for these types of things, but the point is to leave the door open so that we can explore student limits rather than tie their limits down with curriculum requirements. We also see some commonly used mathematical patterns on math contests, such as Pascals Triangle, that students are typically not exposed to in any sort of detail by this stage in their education. It is worth taking some time to explain to students what Pascals Triangle is if only just to break from the idea of a pattern simply being a string of numbers in a straight line that can be expressed as an equation. Other ways that we can get this point across to students is to look at things like patterns in the weather, patterns in plants, patterns in art, and patterns in the form of trends. Pascals Triangle in particular has many mathematical implications other than simply being a pattern that would be worthwhile to explore with students to give them a better sense of some of the uses for patterns and get the more comfortable with the math behind it. For example, the numbers in the rows of Pascals Triangle correspond exactly to the coefficients for the expansion of binomial equations of the form (x + y)n. If we look at (x + y)3 we have (1)x3 + (3)x2y + (3)xy2 + (1)y3, and we can see that the coefficients correspond to the numbers in the fourth row of the triangle. Things like this can be explored and proven to students, which will only serve to strengthen their mathematical abilities, and get them looking for patterns where they normally would not look. We can also look at geometric patterns and tessellations with students and talk about ways of representing them numerically as a way of broadening our students view of patterns. For example we could look at patterns like those seen in the triangle to the left. We can ask students to describe verbally what is going on, then we can look at the area of the shaded region based on what we think is going on. We can look at the number of triangles and how many triangles are added as we get to the smaller triangles. We can use the information that we know about the pattern to find out where a vertex of one triangle intersects a side length of a larger triangle. Many questions can be drawn from looking at these different types of patterns. The same goes for looking at tessellations, such as those seen in the artwork of artist M.C. Escher. Many questions can be drawn about patterns beyond the simple equation of a line, and a lot of it is not at all beyond the reach of what some middle school students are able to grasp. Another type of pattern frequently used on math contests related to geometric patterns that again, is usually not taught to students in much detail at this point, is the set of triangular numbers. If you showed students the set of numbers 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, they will may see what is going on, but will likely not be able to express the pattern mathematically. By doubling each triangular number and displaying it to

students as shown in the diagram below, we can get students to relate the idea of triangular numbers to square and rectangular numbers, and use that to find a formula to get triangular numbers. It prompts students to think cleverly about ways to approach these types of patterns. The Fibonacci Sequence also appears on math contests in different forms fairly frequently, which can be very confusing to students who have a strong understanding of the conventional patterns that are typically taught in school, but have never been exposed to the idea of a recursive formula. We teach students to look only in certain places to find patterns, which can put them at a disadvantage when they have to find a pattern that does not fit any formula or pattern type that they already know. Not only is teaching students about the Fibonacci Sequence great for looking at places that this pattern shows up and reflecting on the significance of that, but it also broadens our students views of what a pattern consists of. In reality, it does not make sense to teach students every pattern type because there is an infinite amount of ways that we can make a pattern. What we want to do is first give students examples of different types of patterns and show them their significance to get them thinking, rather than narrowing what their understanding of a pattern is. Next we want to challenge them with finding patterns in more and more difficult contexts so that they can develop their own way of thinking about patterns, their own ways of looking for patterns in places that they would not expect, and their own ways of being able to describe their findings mathematically.

2. Sample Problems 1) A cricket wants to hop to shelter from the rain. If he goes 1m to the right he will get shelter from a tree. The cricket can hop a distance of 1/2m, but can only hop half that distance for his next hop because the weight of the rain is weighing him down. Each hop he is only able to hop half the distance of the previous hop for this reason. When will the cricket make it to shelter? 2) What digit will be in the ones place of 3123? 3) If 1 x 1 = 1, 11 x 11 = 121, and 111 x 111 = 12321, what is the value of 111,111 x 111,111 without using a calculator? 4) A few tricky patterns: 2, 2, 4, 6, 10, 16, __ , __ , __ 2, 5, 11, 17, 23, __ , __ , __ 1, 2, 4, 7, 12, 19, __ , __ , __

5) What is the expansion of (x + y)10? 6) What is the sum of the first 100 numbers of the following sequence?: 1, -3, 6, -10, 15, -21 7) You have a circle and you want to draw 10 lines that intersect the circle. What is the largest number of separate areas you can divide the circle into by doing this? 8) Seven students are standing in alphabetical order in a circle. The first students name starts with an A, the next students name starts with a B, and they continue in that order all the way up to the seventh student whose name starts with a G. A says 1, then B says 2, then C says 4, then D says 8, then E says 16. If this continues, which student will say 1,073,741,824? 9) You are given the following sequence: 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4...What will be the 1000th digit in the sequence? These are just a handful of the types of problems you want to prepare your students for if they are going to do a math contest, or if they just need to be challenged. There is typically no right or wrong way to approach these problems, which is why they are great to challenge students with. Although this is far beyond what they would likely see based on curriculum outcomes, these would all be considered fair questions for a grade 8 math contest. Again the way to get students to be better at solving these types of problems is not just by getting them to practice each type of problem they might expect to see on the contest, but to exercise their problem solving and pattern recognition skills so that they have the tools to solve any type of pattern based problem that might be thrown at them.

3. Resources 1) http://www.maths.surrey.ac.uk/hostedsites/R.Knott/Fibonacci/fibmaths.html#patt Website contains everything you will ever need to know about the Fibonacci Sequence and more Has a lot of great applications of the Fibonacci Sequence and relations of this pattern to other patterns such as Pascals Triangle that would be great math enrichment for advanced students

2) http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/maths/contents_nopatterns.htm Contains some great lesson plans and ideas for teaching different types of patterns in very creative ways

3) Tower of Hanoi Classic math puzzle that involves moving the pieces in pattern-like way in order to solve it

4) Set Card game that requires the players to quickly recognize patterns that involve color, shading, number, and shape This is similar to the type of thought process involved in trying to find patterns in math Can also get practice playing online at https://www.setgame.com/set

5) http://www.math.iastate.edu/thesisarchive/MSM/AsplundCCSS09.pdf An entire document about the many mathematical uses for Pascals Triangle

6) http://www2.math.umd.edu/~jnd/Patterns.pdf Great document that talks about the issues with pattern recognition for students Also contains many great sample problems based on these issues