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Showing posts from 2015

Changing things up! How to inject discussions into quizzes.

I offer daily quizzes in all my classes. I know that might seem scary to a few (developing, grading, student anxiety) but it is one of the few times I get to see students 'work'. These quizzes are based on three levels of participation (5 points = a quality attempt, 2 points = a minimal attempt, 0 points = no attempt) and have a variety of purposes which I have talked about before . I do review them right after the student's attempt for additional feedback, to model a solution method, and to start the day's lesson. In Calculus I we are reviewing the limit definition of the integral. Suffice it to say that this is a difficult area because it relies on both conceptual understanding, but also computational understanding of things we have not seen together (limits, summation, etc.) There are three major tasks for each question; setting up a generalized area formula, taking a summation of these areas, and then taking the limit of these areas. The specifics aren't impor

Is the lecture dead, or just undead?

Molly Worthen wrote an op-ed in The New York Times, titled "Lecture Me. Really" , which discusses recent research on the lecture format, the push from STEM disciplines to reduce lecturing in favor for active learning, and a solid argument for why lectures are important and relevant. One passage really struck me. Listening continuously and taking notes for an hour is an unusual cognitive experience for most young people. Professors should embrace — and even advertise — lecture courses as an exercise in mindfulness and attention building, a mental workout that counteracts the junk food of nonstop social media. Teaching mathematics quite a bit of my course material is computational and skill based; Find the derivative of this polynomial. A good chunk of the other part is conceptual; When the derivative equals -1 at this value of x what does that mean for the function? Applications makeup the rest: What is the velocity of the ball at this time? All three of these parts of my c

Activity Planning: Logic and showing conditions hold.

A big part of Calculus is showing certain conditions hold. The big example is continuity. There is a very natural interpretation of the idea (If you can draw the graph of a function without picking up your pencil, it is continuous.) but then there is the very technical. (Left and right limits agree, function value must exist, and the limits must agree with the function value.) Just the idea of showing conditions hold is sometimes difficult for students, primary because they have never been asked to do this before. For the first week of my Calculus I course I am doing a lot of review. I know, I know, some of you might yell "But they're in college, you shouldn't have to review." Let's get into that in another post, for now, let's talk what I want them to know before  we talk about continuity. I want them to be able to show conditions are satisfied for a definition or theorem. How do we do that? Below are a few ideas, but I would love to hear your thoughts. Sha

First day jitters!

Question of the day: Why do I always get first day jitters? I have been teaching since 2006 and I still haven't gotten over that first day nervousness of meeting new students. Granted I am at a new institution and I am a little unsure about the population, but I've done this dozens of times by now. How do you get over the first day jitters? Have you?

New year, new me!... Sorta.

With Labor Day ending my focus is (slowly) shifting from Mai Tai's, road trips, and reading for pleasure to the start of a new term and new position. I am now a tenure-track Mathematics Instructor at Clark College , in Vancouver Washington. Having taught college classes since 2006, my path has not been a straight one: BS in Mathematics, MA in Mathematics, working at a few textbook publishers, teaching at seven different colleges, trying out instructional design at a new online college, starting my own business, closing my own business, and (amazingly) now find myself at the second-largest community college in Washington. I taught a couple summer classes to ease into the position, and everything feels right. All my past mistakes have remade themselves into current success. My courses are well designed, have a clear structure and purpose, and I feel confident in the pedagogical and andragogical decisions I make. At the same time I am looking forward to the tenure process and sharing

Hello Russian friends!

I have gotten an influx of traffic from Russia recently and just wanted to welcome you all to this blog. If you have any questions or would like to see specific types of content or material, just let me know.

Reflections: What I do once a class ends.

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This is the second in my line of posts about reflections , why they're useful, what I do to reflect, and what I do to help my students reflect on their own performance. Today we're looking at what I do at the end of the term, and how I prepare for the next time I teach a class. As an adjunct I regularly teach the same classes from term-to-term and anything I can do to help my future self quickly prepare for a class is beneficial. At the start of each term we all have ideas about learning activities, assessments, grading structures, rubrics, and other aspects of how we are going to run (or at least manage) a course. At the end of a term we have seen how they have worked, how they didn't, and ideas for how to make them better. During finals week, for each class I take a half-hour to an hour and write a page or two on all the components of a course. This is a short example of what I started with for my Calculus III course: Calculus III Reflections notes.  These are

Reflections: Just like checking solutions, something else we don't do, but should.

Living time linearly it is sometimes hard to think back and remember how classes started. I always start with good intentions, like "I am going to return every piece of graded material back by the next class session." or "I will create a dynamic learner-centered classroom." or "Active Learning is my watchword." or some other well-intended but doomed to failure dictum. To help make these things a reality for myself, but also for my students, I'm starting to institute end-of-term reflections. My next few posts will explore two types of reflections I am using this term, how they started, and how they are working out this term. Student Reflections - These have taken the form of a 1 point extra credit assignment after a student has completed their final. This short, 5 question assignment asks them to think about what they should have done this term, and what they will do next term.  Course Reflections - After finishing a class I will write a page about

Finally! A Win! How I expressed my concerns and students actually listened.

I had a Win yesterday! A capital 'W' Win! It kind of made my day and thought I'd share it with you all. This term I am teaching an alternative pathway mathematics course. Traditionally students are expected to take anywhere between 1-4 remedial mathematics courses, for which they don't get college credit. These courses are not college-level (below 100-level), so they get credits for taking them but they don't apply to degree programs or requirements. For each remedial math course a student takes their chances of failing (and subsequently) dropping out increase. So to help non-STEM students get around these courses  (which are frequently focused on STEM students) many colleges and universities are trying these alternative pathway courses. Many other organizations and publications have talked about this trend. One of the instructional methods in the course is group work. There are a number of times in a class where I or my co-teacher might say "Let's

Twitter, Statistics, and Failure: What I can learn from other's successes.

The Chronicle just posted the article "With Twitter, Statistics 101 Takes Flight" by Mark E. Ferris  about his use of Twitter to help students understand how statistics is used in different contexts. Overall he does a great job of offering a structured learning activity that exposes his students to uses of statistics. A short summary: Requires all students to create a Twitter account for the course.  Each week students are to follow 10 new statistics-based organizations, post 7 tweets about statistics (retweets of those organization's posts?), retweet 2 of Ferris' posts to keep up on the topics he is covering on his feed, and post 2-3 tweets of their own by discussing interesting statistics they find.  Each Tuesday they are to do a short write-up of one of their weekly tweets, which is worth 15 percent of their grade.  This made me think of my own recent failed attempt to use Twitter to teach statistics. This term I am teaching Inferential Statistics and I tho

Pre-Calculus, the next topic in need of reform?

Jack Rotman did (or is doing) an interesting presentation at the 2015 Michigan Mathematics Meetings looking at Pre-Calculus reform. He draws an analogy to the current Developmental Mathematics reforms (alternative pathway, career-ready, etc.), shares some data on Michigan's approach to Pre-Calculus, and asks that big question "Are Pre-Calculus classes really preparing students for Calculus?" I think its pretty safe to say that most states are in a similar situation regarding Pre-Calculus where colleges and universities have different requirements. In academia I know we don't like comparing institutions, but when students are transferring between different institutions (especially with costs going up) a certain level of state-wide consistency is beneficial to everyone. Students learn material that actually prepares them for the next course/future content, dropout rates lower (as a consequence of having to take less classes), completion times lower, etc.

Excellent article on why stating Learning Objectives might not be the best thing.

While going through the Quality Matters training it always seemed a bit odd to share the learning objectives with students right away. From the design side they are absolutely necessary, from a student engagement perspective they always seemed dull. This article by Donald Clark verbalizes what I was having issues with. Definitely makes me rethink reviewing outcomes on the first day of class.

Spring Break! Beer, sun, and crazy parties!... I mean prepping courses, and catching up on friends.

So that whole promise of regular updates was not fulfilled, at all. Not even an epsilon's worth. Sorry about that. I'm good at lists though, so let's write some of those. Courses for Spring Term 2015 Contemporary Mathematics - This is a new course and is part of a state-wide effort to offer an alternate pathway for non-STEM students the demphasizes algebra. It is the first time the course has been run, and we are using co-teaching to ensure there are enough hands available for the first run through. I hope to post more about this course and provide some context on the state and national levels as well. College Algebra - Fifth time I have taught this course, fairly straightforward at this point. However I do want to include more demonstrations of what I expect them to do each week.  Calculus III - Very excited about this course. I taught it last year for the first time and am looking forward to getting back into it. I would like to include daily quizzes, but I am unsu

Why I need everything in an email.

Something happened this week in one of my classes that I wanted to share and get your feedback on. Last week a student asked if I could bring a cord so they could connect their calculator to a computer and update their OS.  Student: Did you bring the cord you talked about last week? Me: No. Did you email me about it like I asked you to? Student: No.... But I asked you last week. Me: If it wasn't in an email, I didn't remember. Student: [Blank stare.] In general, whenever I talk to a student verbally and they are asking for something, or I need to follow up on something, I ask them to send me an email reminder. With 1-3 such requests each class, for my four college-level classes that adds up to about 4-12 tasks I need to accomplish. To make sure these things are accomplished I use my email as a to-do list, with student emails as the 'things' on my list. What about you? How do you make sure all the small requests and follow-ups are completed in each of

Coming back to the blog after a hiatus with some new projects.

My last post was in mid-November and I'm now getting back to the blog in mid-January. Not the longest time between blog posts, but definitely quite a while. For the Winter 2015 term I am teaching as an adjunct at my home institution and working on a few projects. I'll list the classes below, but the hardest thing is the schedule, three of them are back-to-back (-to-back) between 10 am and 4 pm on Mondays and Wednesdays, the fourth at 6 pm. This means I only teach two days a week, but they're pretty rough days. Not being on campus the rest of the week has also given me a disconnected feeling that I can't shake. I may come in on my non-teaching days, but the cost of driving to the campus, as well as the opportunity cost are limiting. The courses I am teaching this term: Algebra I - This below 100-level math course is the second of four such courses offered. There are quite a few resources available (PowerPoint notes, online math homework, etc.) so my prep time is fai