Middle school mathematics chair Vandana Kadam is currently on an exchange trip in Shanghai to visit and instruct at the World Foreign Language Middle School.
Kadam has been observing and teaching classes, including four sections of grade 6 classes. “The students have been extremely receptive and that curiosity I see in them makes it fun for me to teach,” said Kadam. Her classes include a mix of Chinese students fairly proficient in English and those newer to English. She also has a Chinese co-teacher to translate her lessons if needed.
The language barrier, however, is proving itself to be mostly a non-issue. “[The Chinese students] were comfortable interacting with me as I used some manipulatives and played games with them,” said Kadam.
Coming up, Kadam will be teaching grades 7-10, and has been making lesson plans based on what teachers and students requested would be most beneficial.
Harker held its 11th annual Diana Nichols Math Invitational on March 10, which was attended by several schools in the area. A total of about 280 students participated in the contest. Shaya Zarkesh took fifth place in the grade 6 individual event, while Kai-Siang Ang earned third place at the grade 7 level. Jonathan Ma finished third in the grade 8 individual category.
The team of Ma, Jonathan Dai, Grace Guan, Vineet Kosaraju, Anika Mohindra, Emily Pan and Jessica Zhu took third in the grade 8 team competition.
In early November, students Patrick Lin and Ashwath Thirumalai, both grade 9, traveled to Beijing, China, to participate in the World Mathematics Team Championship (WMTC) as members of the U.S. team, which took third place in the middle division. Both students also won individual silver medals for their outstanding performances. Lin and Thirumalai competed in the middle school division due to the competition’s age requirements. Lin was invited to the WMTC by the Berkeley Math Circle, a program for Bay Area high school and middle school students that helps foster youth interest in mathematics and prepares them for contests such as the WMTC.
Middle school math teacher Vandana Kadam was named the Mathcounts Coach of the Week on Nov. 8. She was featured in a Q&A interview on the Mathcounts website, where she mentioned that she has been a Mathcounts coach for 10 years and has coached teams to the Mathcounts National Competition three times, including the most recent championship in May 2011.
Founded nearly 30 years ago, Mathcounts is an organization that fosters the education of middle school math students nationwide by holding competitions at local and national levels. Through written and oral exercises in both individual and team competitions, students learn essential critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
The Harker School recently came in second place nationwide in National Assessment & Testing’s 2011 Fall Startup Event mathematics contest. Coached by math teacher Misael Fisico, upper school students raced to complete 100 problems within a 30-minute time limit.
Several students had outstanding individual performances on the test, which helped boost Harker into second place. Cindy Liu and Rahul Jayaraman tied for 10th place in the grade 9 division. Other freshmen who performed well in this division were Sachin Peddada with 12th place, Ashwath Thirumalai with 18th place and Patrick Lin with 22nd place. Vikram Sundar took ninth place in the grade 10 division, and in the grade 11 division, Ashvin Swaminathan earned 18th place. Patrick Yang placed first in the grade 12 division, and classmate Lucy Cheng took 17th.
Other National Assessment & Testing contests that Harker will be participating in this year include the 2011 Team Scramble, taking place this week, and the 2011 Ciphering Time Trials on Dec. 8.
In late September, upper school statistics students attended the San Francisco Giants’ final regular-season game to gather information that they will be using for statistics projects throughout the year. “The statistics curriculum is designed to teach students how to address a question of interest through data,” said Troy Thiele, upper school statistics teacher, who accompanied the students along with colleague Mary Mortlock. “They need to formulate a method to obtain useful data, then analyze it and use probability to make conclusions about their question of interest.”
For the rest of the school year, statistics teachers will have students return to the data they’ve collected as they learn the various principles of statistical problem-solving. “In this way, the concepts we teach in class will hopefully have greater relevance to students as they apply them to data that they have collected to answer questions they have formulated themselves,” Thiele said.
Thiele also hopes that the trip will help students enjoy the study of statistics. “The hope is that through a positive and fun learning experience, students will think fondly of statistics, rather than as just another class,” he said. “This positive experience will hopefully motivate students to recognize how statistics can be applied in all facets of their lives.”
In July, Shaya Zarkesh, who starts grade 6 in the fall, helped Team USA win the team championship at this year’s Indonesia International Math Competition in Bali, Indonesia. As the youngest member on the team, Zarkesh competed with his teammates in a tough bracket, going up against top teams such as Thailand, Bulgaria, overall champions China and others.
In February, lower school math teacher Pat Walsh’s grade 5 students submitted building designs to Aaron Bean ’85, who now works as a general contractor. Bean assessed designs submitted by students in all of Walsh’s classes, and selected a winner from each class to go on a special trip to a building site.
Bean chose Makenzie Tomihiro’s design for its creative design. “The right use of offsets in a building’s shape can really improve the architectural design,” he said. He gave the honorable mention to Kaitlin Hsu, calling her design “beautiful.”
From Walsh’s period 4 class, Bean selected Mateusz Kranz as the winner. “I saw amazing maturity in his design: the proportions of rooms were very good, and even more importantly, the floor plan has flow,” he said. The runner up was Ben Hyver, whose round design impressed Bean. “Does Ben know that a round exterior is the most efficient one to complete? Definitely thinking outside the box!” he exclaimed.
“The 25’ wide by 20’ deep unobstructed space that includes the entry, kitchen, dining and living spaces is really inviting,” Bean said of Tanvi Singh’s design, which was chosen as the period 5 winner. Runner up Akshaya Vemuri created “an example of overall good layout. Akshaya minimizes hallways and uses the space in each room to its fullest potential.” Taylor Kohlmann’s house, with its trampoline room and indoor water slides, was given an honorable mention. “I just love the color and creativity!” Bean said.
Period 7 student Amy Dunphy’s design won for what Bean called its “simple elegance. This is the most versatile floor plan I saw. Amy even thought about the shape of the opening and passageways!” Bean said. Runner up Ania Kranz submitted another “open” design. “Here is another situation where simplicity wins!” said Bean.
Mateusz Kranz was selected as the overall winner from all the classes.
Third grade students earned a Regional Award in the recent Continental Mathematics League (CML) contest. This yearly contest, which consists of three separate meets, gives students the chance to compete in mathematical problem-solving against a worldwide group of third graders from participating schools.
This is the fourth year Harker’s grade 3 team earned first place in the region, which includes 15 U.S. states as well as the countries of Belgium, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
For each meet, the six highest scores are sent in as a team score, thus the team members can change from month to month. The contest, which consists of six questions per meet, was held January through March, and three students tied for the top score for Harker, at 15 out of a total of 18 possible points.
Students earning medals this year as the top scoring students were Andrew Cheplyansky, Naviya Kapadia and Nevin Liang. Second-place students who earned certificates of achievement were Anvi Banga, Matthew Jin, Eileen Li, Sachin Shah and Gautham Viswanathan. Several students earned perfect scores in one of the three meets, including Cheplyansky, Kapadia, Benjamin MacDonald, Viswanathan and Angele Yang.
Congratulations to these students, who deserve to be recognized for their strong approaches to problem solving! This is the seventh year we have participated in the contest. Last year, grades 4 and 5 began participating as well.
[Update] The San Jose Mercury News has published a nice story about the victory – read all about it!
May 11, 2011
Harker’s Vandana Kadam, middle school math teacher, led Celine Liang, grade 7, from Harker, and three students from other California schools to the Mathcounts national championship in Washington, D.C.
Students from Redwood, Cupertino and Kennedy middle schools, California’s top finishers at the state level, were the other three members of the championship team. Liang was third in the state competition. Mathcounts was founded 28 years ago by the National Society of Professional Engineers, CNA Foundation and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
“Making it to the California state team itself is an accomplishment due to the population and the competition,” said Chris Nikoloff, head of school.
A total of 250,000 students participated in MathCounts nationwide this year, coached by over 5,000 coaches, noted Kadam. There were 56 teams at nationals, which ran May 5-8. The teams come from each of the 50 states, plus the Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico, and added teams from the District of Columbia, Department of Defense and the State Department. No matter how large or small the state is, only four top students represent each one.
Students are graded individually for individual prizes and also on the team score. The team score comprises the average of the four individual scores and an additional team round. California beat all top teams to clinch first place and each member of the winning California team won a $2,000 scholarship and a trip to space camp. “The students did an awesome job. Harker was well represented by Celine Liang,” said Kadam.