During the week of June 15, 2015, the Educational Service Unit #11 Staff Development Department partnered with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to offer a Nebraska Math Summer Institute course. The Nebraska Math Summer Institute program was created to provide opportunities for Nebraska teachers to deepen their knowledge of mathematics content and pedagogy, and to bring these opportunities to the teachers’ own communities. This week long inquiry-based course was entitled Math 806T, Number Theory & Cryptology. This course focused on basic number theory results, which are needed to understand the number theoretic RSA cryptography algorithm (an encryption algorithm which is in use today to secure information sent via the internet). The course emphasized connections to middle level mathematics and promoted a deep understanding of the integers and their properties. Elementary methods for encoding and decoding were introduced to explain the nature of cryptology. Jason Vitosh, Noyce Master Teacher of mathematics from Falls City Public Schools, was the instructor for the week.
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