About This Lesson
This lesson is about the Towers of Hanoi problem, a classic famous problem involving recursive thinking to reduce what appears to be a very large and difficult problem into a series of simpler ones. The learning objective is for students to begin to understand recursive logic and thinking, relevant to computer scientists, mathematicians and engineers. The lesson is experiential, in that each student will be working with her/his own Towers of Hanoi manipulative, inexpensively obtained. There is no formal prerequisite, although some familiarity with set theory and functions is helpful. The last three sections of the lesson involve some more formal concepts with recursive equations and proof by induction, so the students who work on those sections should probably be level 11 or 12 in a K-12 educational system. The lesson has a Stop Point for 50-minute classes, followed by three more segments that may require a half to full additional class time. So the teacher may use only those segments up to the Stop Point, or if two class sessions are to be devoted to the lesson, the entire set of segments. Supplies are modest, and may be a set of coins or some washers from a hardware store to assemble small piles of disks in front of each student, each set of disks representing a Towers of Hanoi manipulative. Or the students may assemble before the class a more complete Towers of Hanoi at home, as demonstrated in the video. The classroom activities involve attempting to solve with hand and mind the Towers of Hanoi problem and discussing with fellow students patterns in the process and strategies for solution.
For more information visit: http://blossoms.mit.edu/videos/lessons/towers_hanoi_experiential_recurs…
