Move over Sudoku, your fun cousin Kakuro is sum puzzle!! If you have 3 boxes to make a 7, the numbers must be 1, 2 and 4 as you cannot repeat a digit -- the challenge is finding the correct order!! Academic integrity has been in the news with cheating scandals at Harvard and Stuyvesant -- some experts say cheating can be combated with time management. This month's audio is a clip of two students learning/debating/arguing exponent rules.
Recommended Solving
Start with White Belt Kakuro, then you can progress through Green, Brown and get to Black! Invented as Cross Sums in 1950, these puzzles first appeared in Dell Puzzle Magazines in the United States. Numbers across and down must add without repeating a digit, for example, a 4 can only be a 1 and 3 (or 3 and 1) but a 5 can be 1 and 4 or 2 and 3. Kakuro fortifies mental Math, reasoning, and logic and is readily available online -- a description of a Kakuro app for the ipad "Primo Kakuro is a beautiful, highly addictive game that actually challenges your mind and can make you smarter. This is a rare thing among the vast multitude of addictive time wasters on the App Store."
Cheating has gone high tech. In June, a Stuyvesant high school student used his iphone to text the Physics Regents answers to 140 friends. New York magazine's article about this student speculated as to why students cheat -- competition for grades, parental expectations and perhaps a lack of understanding consequences. In college, one of my professors made cheating impossible by designing unique exams for each student! In my own classroom, I usually make two different exams, allow open book, and have students take turns proctoring at my desk. CSU has another perspective as their linked page (see below) begins with "Procrastination, Procrastination, Procrastination".
Everybody gets 24 hours a day but managing time wisely is important for students. Full-time college students transitioning from high school need to make good use of the increase in unstructured time. Planning is the key to keeping on top of school assignments or any other goal whether academic, professional, health, or personal. The planners and planning tools below can help organize goals, tasks and time.
