Monthly Archives: December 2007

Reflections

Posted on December 26, 2007 by

I’m taking some time over break to reflect on my experiences so far in this first year. Technically the semester isn’t over yet (and I still don’t think it’s a good idea to have finals after break) but it seems … Continue reading →

Posted in First Year | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Never Assume

Posted on December 19, 2007 by

Today in my first period class, I asked a student to interpret another student’s work on the board. She said she couldn’t as it was written in red. She then mentioned that she can’t really see writing on the whiteboard … Continue reading →

Posted in First Year | Tagged , | 4 Comments

The Three Conspirators

Posted on December 18, 2007 by

Sometimes students find a way to deal with peers who aren’t pulling their own weight. The recent discussion on group work reminded me of a remarkable instance of this happening about two years ago. I was working as a special … Continue reading →

Posted in Math, Problem Solving | 6 Comments

I’ve Never…

Posted on December 15, 2007 by

I was discussing a unit on logarithms with a friend today and he asked if seeing one of these would help my students’ understanding: I had to admit that as I’ve never used a slide rule, I didn’t have a … Continue reading →

Posted in General | 12 Comments

Examining Learning

Posted on December 11, 2007 by

It is portfolio time again for the freshman. I decided to structure the cover letters a bit differently for this unit. Instead of telling them what concepts to address, I left it open-ended. The instructions were to write a cover … Continue reading →

Posted in Math, Problem Solving | Tagged , | 3 Comments

We Bring it on Ourselves

Posted on December 10, 2007 by

confusion. , but don’t confuse that with , unless of course you’re trying to show that a function is the inverse. Speaking of which… , but Let’s not even get into onto.

Posted in Math | 17 Comments

Creating a Situation

Posted on December 9, 2007 by

The freshman have been working on solving systems of equations by graphing. This has been done mainly in the context of word problems. They’ve gotten pretty good at finding equations to model the situations and at solving. They seem to … Continue reading →

Posted in Math, Problem Solving | 2 Comments