The Math Forum's Problems of the Week (PoWs) are designed to provide creative, non-routine challenges for students in grades three through twelve. Problem-solving and mathematical communication are key elements of every problem.

While the Math Forum seeks support to provide online mentoring, here are alternative methods for mentoring your students:

Teacher mentors individual responses Students email you their responses. Share these ideas with your students Tips for Writing Solutions.

Note: If you would rather they not use your regular email account, consider signing up for a Hotmail, Yahoo, Netscape or some other free account.

Teacher mentors group responses: Arrange students in groups; encourage students to work on solving the problem together (this could be face-to-face or it also could be through email) One student in the group emails you their group response.

Students are peer mentors: Arrange students in pairs or groups and encourage them to email each other and respond to each others' thoughts on solving the problem.

Teachers exchange mentoring: Create an exchange program with a colleague. Arrange with another teacher in your school, district or somewhere to trade mentoring tasks. They provide an email address for your students to use and you provide an email address for their students to use. Again this could be done with individual students or with groups of students.

There are many ways to use the problems posted on the Math Forum site each week.

Full computer lab
Students read the problem and respond in email using one of the mentoring suggestions below.

Groups of computers in classroom
Students in groups read the problem and respond in email using one of the mentoring suggestions below.

One computer with projection device in classroom
As a class, students read the problem. Options at that point would be to write a solution to the problem as a class, or with students working in groups, as partners or individuals. Writing a class solution allows the teacher to model effective mathematical communication.

No computers in the classroom
Teacher provides printed versions of the problem.

Computer access at home
Students are assigned or suggested to access the Problem of the Week as homework. Students respond in email using one of the mentoring suggestions below.

Other problem solving resources to use with your students:

ESCOT Problems
A collection of interactive problems for middle- and high-school students.

Problems Library
This resource organizes the archives of these six services for browsing by mathematics and story topic, rates problems for difficulty level, and provides for searching by keyword.

Problems of the Week Book, Volume 1
Visit this page for more details and ordering information.

We would like to hear your ideas, too. Feel free to write to us directly or post a message to the Problem of the Week Discussion.