My talk on Wednesday November 3rd is based on an article found in the journal, The Mathematics Teacher, Vol. 103, No. 4 from November 2009 titled Japanese Logic Puzzles & Proof written by Jeffrey J. Wanko. It discusses how solving Japanese logic puzzles such as Sudoku in a structured way can help young students develop certain skills that help when writing proofs, such as deductive reasoning. One interesting note is that the puzzles discussed in this article are independent of language, unlike crossword puzzles, so can be understood and completed by anybody.

I will discuss the necessary set of skills needed to solve several different logic puzzles and how they relate to writing proofs. I will also show several examples of the different puzzles and how to deduce the solutions. This article was focused on using logic puzzles as a teaching tool so I will also be connecting my talk to a second article, How Puzzles Made Us Human written by Pradeep Mutalik in the September 2014 edition of Math Horizons. This second article explains why solving puzzles is so satisfactory for people and I will discuss how this is beneficial for students in relation to math.

I look forward to showing you even more fun puzzles to challenge yourself with and have included a link to a website with the puzzles for you to try.

http://www.puzzle-bridges.com/

See you Wednesday,
Kendyl