My short-term elementary algebra class is drawing to a close. For the midterm I tried a new exam strategy that I really liked. I teach a 2-hour block that meets 4 days a week. On a Tuesday students spent the first hour working on problems from Chapters 1 and 2, and we went over the solutions during the second hour. On the next day we repeated the pattern for Chapters 3 & 4. On the Thursday students were given instant…
With the implementation of AB705 coming in Fall 2019, I am currently teaching elementary algebra for the last time. I am using a flipped classroom approach, and I am really proud of how hard my students are working. (I’ll blog more about that in the near future.) This is a short-term class, and the plan was to teach new material for three weeks, then devote the fourth week to the midterm exam. I was going to review on Tuesday and…
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…
Last Spring I flipped my elementary algebra class. For each section I used a cycle of three assignments in MyMathLab to make it all work. FLIP Assignment This was a media assignment that incorporated concept videos, example videos, and homework exercises. Students completed these assignments before class. Reflect Quiz This was a 5-question quiz, focused on the problem types I felt were the most important in that section. The first attempt loaded a personalized homework, and students could take the…
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…
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,…
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…
Lately I have been thinking about how great a job we have done in modernizing our intro stats courses, and how we have not done that in our algebra courses. In statistics we have embraced technological changes, such as transitioning from the binomial formula to binomial tables to using technology like StatCrunch/TI to compute probabilities. In algebra, that sort of transition is far from wide spread. When students have more ownership and control, they are more motivated to learn. In…
It’s Flipped Friday, where I update how my flipped classes are going. If you want to see how my Intro Stats course is going, check out the day-by-day posts on my StatBlog. This week I had planned to cover two sections in my intermediate algebra class – multiplication and division of radical expressions, and solving radical equations. I decided to devote half of the two-hour block to the first section, and the rest of the class to the second section….
Last week I came across a Wired article: Wolfram|Alpha (& AI) Is Making It Easier To Cheat, and reading the article brought so many thoughts to mind about teaching mathematics in today’s world. Here goes … 1) We need to make sure that students understand that HW is a learning tool, not just something that earns points. — George Woodbury (@georgewoodbury) August 25, 2017 I feel that we often assume that students know why they do homework and that they…