Through math competitions, guest speakers, math festivals, summer math programs and internships, Orlando Math Circle (OMC) promotes engagement and creative expression in mathematics. The variety of such math events in the circle provides a large selection of extracurricular activities for students in Orlando.

I started competition math in eighth grade. I loved that it focused on math beyond the typical school curriculum, but the competitive aspect was never my cup of tea. I began to realize that not only were math competitions focused on results, but so was math instruction. For instance, AP Calculus was completely indexed towards the exam, which meant that our learning was constrained by the parameters of the exam. Instead of primarily focusing on the concepts behind the equation, most instructors just teach how to get the right answer the fastest way.

The pressure of performing well and scoring highly slowly wore away at my passion for math, to the point where I began to question whether I even enjoyed math at all. I needed to find a way to foster my vision of math. Learning should be a creative and collaborative process. Students should learn for the sake of learning, and not for the sake of simply doing well on an exam. Orienting education towards a fixed path begins to limit what students can learn, missing creative possibilities.

When I realized the need for an environment that would focus on less tradi- tional algorithms of math, I decided to take matters into my own hands. With this goal in mind came the Orlando Math Circle – an organization targeting students of all ages and backgrounds that promotes inclusivity and empha- sizes creative applications of math. My work with the OMC has brought about many opportunities. For example, I regularly taught at a local middle school on Saturdays, where I was able to foster math education in a non-test- oriented setting. Through the growing community of its students, OMC has been able to foster creative ways to explore advanced mathematical concepts, such as real-world applications of fractals, binary representations and number theory. These concepts were able to be taught in a way that prioritizes the process over the solution.

I was amazed that people in mathematics like Douglas O’Roark (Chicago Math Circle), Dr. Loh (Carnegie Mellon University), and Dr. Tanton (Mathematical Association of America) were so responsive and helpful with this project. I joined the Global Math Project in 2016. I was intrigued that this math event would reach across different countries and cultures through the math activity of Exploding Dots. I thought OMC would be a good vehicle to involve local students in this very same process.

In developing lesson plans that are accessible for all learners, we routinely explore means of offering math enrichment to our students, regardless of their age or ability. One way to do this is to provide an innovative peer teaching and learning experience in a Math Circle environment. The OMC creates academic collaboration between elementary, middle school, high school, and college age participants across the greater Orlando area. Given the various levels of experience and the need to tailor the activities differently at each level, one tool OMC routinely uses to challenge its more advanced students is to task the older students with preparing lesson plans for the younger students that will be taught in local community centers and libraries. This peer teaching model is important to not only hone the older students’ understanding of a topic, but also to give them the opportunity to develop their skills in training, mentoring, public speaking and project planning. In addition, this practice creates a collaborative learning environment for all Math Circle participants and increases student ownership in the circle. We introduce students to mathematical ideas that they do not come across in the curriculum. For example, OMC explores topics like combinatorics, number theory, and graph theory – all of which are beyond normal school curriculum. Even advanced students who take calculus in high school are usually unfamiliar with these kinds of topics. Our math circle challenges students to think outside the box and to engage in mathematical conversations beyond classroom mathematics.

*Taken from – “Connecting Mathematics and Community: Challenges, Successes, and Different Perspectives,” Journal of Math Circles: Vol. 1 : Iss. 1 , Article 6. Available at: https://digitalcommons.cwu.edu/mathcirclesjournal/vol1/iss1/6