Student Expectations Presentation

Out of my previous post I created the following presentation. While nothing revolutionary, it allows me to talk about the college atmosphere, introduce new college students to the idea of acting in good faith in an academic setting, and what I expect from them. I will be using this during the first day of classes from now on, and most likely put them in my syllabus.

If you have any suggestions and comments, feel free to share!

Student Expectations

This term I've encountered some behavioral issues with a student in a class that is focused on group-work. It isn't a flipped classroom, but one where we struggle through questions in class and students are expected to work on them outside of class. I wasn't expecting to deal with behavioral issues this early in the term, but they have given me the opportunity to formalize some of my student expectations. This is the list I've come up with so far:

- Everyone should act in good faith. (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith?show=10&t=1412798451 )

- Everyone should treat everyone in the classroom with respect.

- Everyone should come to class prepared to learn and teach.

- Everyone should come to class with a positive attitude about the material.

- Everyone should help the students in their group during group work.

- All questions should be asked in the spirit of learning and exploration of the topics.

- All answers should be provided to explain and educate.

- Everyone is capable of understanding, and answering each question.

That first one is something I've mulled over for a few years, and I think I have a good approach on now. If a student is not acting in good faith then they are acting, or saying things that aren't true. If that happens, how can I get accurate information from formal and informal assessments? I need to use those assessments to determine if students understand an idea or concept, and if not how to adjust and change my explanation, resources, tools, and materials.

My hope is that by talking about these expectations openly and honestly, I will address the behavior issues with this particular student, and also create a positive environment with everyone.

Fall 2014 Schedule

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 forward to or loathing not having a resource to rely on. Might be a good time to prep my own book on the topic.

I have also been contracted to teach a culinary math class at a local (although corporate) culinary school. The course mainly covers in-the-kitchen topics, like conversions, yields, and plate costing. The course is fairly small (10 students) and they all seem to be fairly motivated. All of them have taken 3 kitchen basics classes, so I feel there won't be much 'weeding out' as in other math classes at this level. Some students did mention that they've covered some of the more advanced topics in the course in other classes, so I'm a bit unsure of the role of the course. If there is quite a bit of overlap, I am looking forward to getting the syllabi of the other courses and seeing where I can support their course objectives.

I will also be doing some after school tutoring for a few high school students, taking a class or two through Coursera (more on that later), and enjoying the married life.

Culinary Math and Visual Mnemonics

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 pretty simple, nesting letters inside of each other. Compare this with the 'normal' way of looking at unit conversions, a table, and the benefits are pretty clear.

While the table is only good for one conversion at a time, the above image shows the relationship of four different units. The succinctness of the image is powerful.

The other visual mnemonics are based on the below image:

To find one of the parts cover it up and follow the below 'rubric'.

- If 'P' was covered up, mutliply the 'W' (whole amount) and the % (the percent given).
- If 'W' was covered up, divide 'P' (part) by the '%' (percent).
- If '%' was covered up, divide 'P' (part) by the 'W' (whole amount).

While not the most ingenious thing, it is a fairly simple mnemonic to follow, and the text uses it in a number of different contexts (edible portions, as purchased portions, etc.)

Have you encountered an interesting visual mnemonic? I'd like to hear what you've encountered out in the 'wild'.

Worksheet Wednesday - Summer Statistics Surprise!

I hope your summer has been enlightening, relaxing, and/or lazy, whatever your preference may be. I've been focusing on two big events, planning and preparing for my wedding at the end of August, and teaching a summer Statistics night class. The former has been stressful, challenging, and rewarding... as has the later actually. I don't think students enjoyed the class much (summer, night, 8-week class), but I'm hoping they'll keep a few of the lessons in mind as they continue their academic careers.

To help you in your future Statistics classes (either as an instructor or a student) below are my In-Class Activities. Most of them are what I call 'call and response activities', where I usually gave these out during lecture, and in-between direct instruction, scaffolded examples, and discussions, I would have students complete a few of these questions. I would 'call' with doing a simple example, and they would 'respond' by doing a similar example. At the end of lecture they would then be responsible for completing them before the next test. I tended not to give makeups for these activities, as I would drop the lowest two.

MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 01 - 2.7 - Standard Deviation
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 03 - 6.1-6.4 - Experiments
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 04 - 7.1-7.3 - Empirical Probability
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 05 - 7.4-7.5 - Theoretical Probability
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 06 - 8.1-8.3 - Discrete and Continuous Variables
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 07 - 8.4-8.6 - Normal Random Variables Activity
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 08 - 9.1, 9.3 - Sampling Distributions
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 09 - 9.10, 9.2 - Central Limit Theorem
MTH243 Statistics I - Activity 10 - 9.4, 9.6 - Applications of the Central Limit Theorem

If you do use them, feel free to share with me either through email or commenting below how the activity went.

Creating an activity about Bayes' Theorem from a blog post

When I teach a topic I haven't taught for a while, I usually refer to some old texts, my course notes, and the internet for new ways of presenting the topic. In my statistics class we were to cover Bayes' Theorem, a topic I have always enjoyed presenting, but never felt that I got quite 'right'. Students seemed disconnected from the idea, and weren't able to answer basic questions about the idea during the first lecture.

To address this I wanted to create an activity where students were to apply Bayes' Theorem in a relatively simple way. Searching the internet I found the article (an essay really) An Intuitive Explanation of Bayes' Theorem by Eliezer S. Yudkowsky, and thought it did a good job explaining the basic idea, and even includes different presentations of the same example. These different presentations are used to discuss innumeracy in health professionals, but provided me a variety of ways of presenting this example.

After some self-editing and debate, I settled on using the simplest presentation of this example; Statistics I Activity - Bayes' Theorem. While the questions aren't directly about Bayes' Theorem, it gets students more familiar with conditional probabilities and how to compute them.

Creating an activity from a blog post or article has some advantages I didn't realize until I presented the activity to students:

• Students are able to confirm their answers by reading the article, a noble goal by itself. 
• I don't mention where I pulled the example from, so they have to search through the article to find the 'answers'. If they read through parts of the article by accident, even better.
• The content becomes richer by pulling from outside resources. I dislike the idea that a course is just about what I, as the instructor, want from students. The ideas and concepts we are talking about are greater than just me, the textbook, and the student. Using someone else's perspective on the topic makes the course 'bigger'.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to share them below.

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