Applied Abstractions

This fall term I have contracted for the following classes at a local community college: - A developmental algebra course. I haven't taught a course at this level in a year and am looking forward to getting back to the math teaching/life coaching dichotomy these classes require. The course uses PowerPoint files the utilize 'clickers', an online homework system, group activities, and group exams. I'm looking forward to trying to make the PowerPoints a bit more engaging. There's such an awful head space with them, I'm just unsure how best to use them. - A college algebra course. Fairly straight-forward flipped-classroom model that I've taught a few times before. We've met once and they seem fairly young, and a bit disinterested, but I'm optimistic. - A pre-statistics course that focuses on combinatorics, and some financial math. The assessments are fairly unique, nine quizzes and one final, and there is no textbook. Not sure if I'm looking forw

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