'She loves math so much:' Cedarburg teacher is $25K richer thanks to creative lesson



Elizabeth Masslich



CEDARBURG -- A Cedarburg teacher is $25,000 richer thanks to a creative math lesson.

Learning geometry can make you dizzy, but with the help of Mrs. Masslich, things become more clear.

"I think she's really just an amazing teacher, like one of my favorite teachers I've ever had," said Kailey Ramaker, student.

For years, Mrs. Masslich used a popular way to create a random data set to teach geometrical probability, but she realized it wasn't enough. Kids needed an element of technology to get the concept.





"I had students now take a picture of their dart, import it into GeoGebra, and then do some coding to generate a random point generator of 100 points," said Masslich.

It just worked.

"Which is so fun to see the students, 'oh, I totally understand this,'" said Masslich.

Freshman Kailey Ramaker wasn't surprised at all that Mrs. Masslich was honored for her work.

"She always has so much energy, just because she loves math so much," said Ramaker.

The only problem Mrs. Masslich was struggling to solve was what to do with $25,000.





The award included a trip to the National Museum of Mathematics in New York City. Masslich said that was the part of the prize she was most looking forward to.