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AMATYC Starts Tomorrow 

AMATYC Starts Tomorrow 

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Looking forward to attending sessions! With AB 705, I am looking at all of the different acceleration models. As always, I will also focus on student motivation, innovative classroom strategies, technology in the classroom, and statistics.  I will be using Twitter to report out as I go.  Also looking forward to catching up with some old friends and making some new friends. My college will have 9 instructors in attendance (home-field advantage) so this should be a fun, educational experience. 

Learning Catalytics at #AMATYC

Learning Catalytics at #AMATYC

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It’s AMATYC week! This Thursday I will be co-presenting a commercial session (C4 – 1:40-2:55pm in Marina 3) with Diane Hollister. We will give an overview of how Learning Catalytics works, as well as how we use it in our classes. If you would like to start using student response systems in your class, this is the tool for you! I hope to see you there – George

One Proportion Tests w/ Binomial P-Values

One Proportion Tests w/ Binomial P-Values

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Last fall I began using an approach to incorporate inferential techniques into my Intro Stats course much earlier than I used to. (Hat tip to Matt Davis from Chabot College in CA for the inspiration to do this.) I began using simulations, randomization, and bootstrapping to start exploring statistical inference. I introduced my students to the concept of confidence intervals and evaluating claims about population parameters based on sample evidence. I first formalize the hypothesis testing language and procedure with…

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TBT – Encourage Creativity

TBT – Encourage Creativity

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Unfortunately, many of today’s students view mathematics as a non-creative field. They’ve been told that there is only one way to solve a problem. Rather than search for solutions, they have become conditioned to waiting on their instructor to tell them what to do and how to do it. First, students need to dispel that myth that there is only one way to solve a problem. This week I was introducing the general addition formula for finding the probability of…

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MyLab Monday – How Many Questions?

MyLab Monday – How Many Questions?

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One of the most frequent questions I get about MyLab homework and quizzes is “How many problems do you put in an assignment?” My most frequent answer … It Depends. When I first started my homework assignments had somewhere between 15 and 20 questions. My chapter quizzes, which became semi-chapter quizzes, also had between 15 and 20 questions. As I have aged, I apparently have become a minimalist! I have drastically cut down the length of my assignments, and I…

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TBT – Agile Students

TBT – Agile Students

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One of my goals is to be an agile teacher. I also want that for my students. Often students arrive in my class preferring to work with one method that works for every problem of a certain type. I want them to flexible and use the most efficient solution depending on the particular problem. Case in point – quadratic equations. Students who have seen this material before want to use only the quadratic formula, as they know it can be…

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MyLab Monday – Turning Off Learning Aids

MyLab Monday – Turning Off Learning Aids

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One of the biggest complaints I hear about MyMathLab homework is that students rely too heavily on the learning aids. (I know the name is now MyLab Math – but it sounds wrong to me!) In particular, many students use the “View An Example” in an attempt to mimic their way to a correct answer by replacing the “5” in the example for a “7” in the problem. I think we can all agree that this is not an effective way to learn,…

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Flipped Friday – Imaginary Numbers?

Flipped Friday – Imaginary Numbers?

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In my Intermediate Algebra course, we finished our work with rational equations and their applications this Wednesday. On Monday I plan to get through solving quadratic equations by factoring, by extracting square roots, by completing the square, and by the quadratic formula. I thought I’d walk you through my thoughts for setting up the Flip assignment for that day. Flip Topic 1: Factoring Trinomials and Differences of Squares These are review topics from Elementary Algebra, and students have been factoring…

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Tech Thursday – Recording Video

Tech Thursday – Recording Video

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In my experience, the printed word is not the most efficient way to learn mathematics. When a student looks through an example problem that has already been worked out, they are robbed of the time to stop, think, evaluate, reflect, or create because they can already see the next line of the solution. When the math is presented in real time it is more effective, and that’s why video of some type is so effective. My primary recording tool is…

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Wildcard Wednesday: Winning Students Over With Technology

Wildcard Wednesday: Winning Students Over With Technology

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Today I led a highly structured class that made effective use of technology, and finally got some skeptical students on board. Several students told me when they got to class that they were having a hard time with rationalizing denominators, and fortunately I had my lesson set up to begin there. We started by rationalizing a one-term denominator and then a two-term denominator by hand. I explained how and why we began rationalizing denominators in the first place, and although…

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