2014 Spring Term

For this term I'm teaching four classes as a part-time adjunct for a total of 20 credits. A bit of a load, but I'm pretty confident about it.

College Algebra - I taught two sections of this course last term, and I found it pretty unique. It uses a flipped classroom model with Handouts to be completed in-class and at home, quizzes in Moodle (our LMS), group tests, and traditional individual tests.

Pre-Calculus/Trigonometry - First time teaching this course at this school, a long time since I've taught it. I'm using completion based in-class activities, daily quizzes, and tests for assessments.

Calculus I - I've taught this course before and already have homework assignments in Moodle. I have daily quizzes to make sure students keep up with the course, and am introducing thee in-class activities from POGIL, a resource recommended by a colleague.

Calculus III - This is the first time teaching this course, and the highest level mathematics course I have taught. The curriculum is changing to align to a course at our state school intended for engineering students. Half the course is the traditional series and sequences material, and the other half is an introduction to Linear Algebra, as opposed to advanced integration techniques. The class meets three times a week, the first two class meetings being lecture, and the third day being a review of the material, a quiz, and an in-class activity. I am very excited about this course and will share a few of my in-class activities here for feedback.

My schedule this term is a bit rough, consisting of either 8 am or 11 am morning classes, or 6 pm night classes. After this term I will only take one night class, as two are kind of rough on the home life.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Building Thinking Classrooms: Planning for Winter 2024

 I am hosting a professional learning community for my state-level organization (SBCTC) and am sharing some thoughts on how I am planning my next term, using the Building Thinking Classrooms ( BTC ) framework. Below is the post I made on December 20th 2023 to our internal discussion forum. If you have thoughts, questions, or ideas about the BTC framework, post it below! ------------------------------  I am teaching MATH 104 Finite Mathematics with Support next term, and want to weave thinking questions throughout the course . This corequisite support course allows students can enter the course with below college level placement, and earn college credit in one term instead of two. These students are majoring in business, accounting, or other programs, eventually need to take MATH&148 Business Calculus. The course covers linear equations, systems of linear equations, linear programming, the Simplex method, functions (polynomial, rational, exponential, logarithmic), financial math, a
Read more

Culinary Math and Visual Mnemonics

Image
For the upcoming fall term I've been contracted to teach a culinary math class at a local culinary school. The course deals primarily with units of measure, yields, and recipe costing. Doing my own research into the course content I found an excellent resource in Culinary Math , by Linda Blocker and Julia Hill. Overall it is an excellent introduction into the mathematical topics that are important to cooks and chefs, and the terminology they've developed around them. One aspect of the book that I really enjoyed is its use of visual mnemonics . The first one they use is this one to show the relationship between cups, pints, quarts, and gallons: Within each 'P' there are two 'C's, indicating that there are two cups in every pint, and so on; two pints to a quart, four quarts to a gallon, etc. This has a really nice recursive relationship as well, within each 'Q' there are four 'C's, meaning there are four cups in a quart. The design of it is
Read more