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 unsure if I can make that happen this term. I need to balance my time with remember most of what is in...
• Statistics II - This will be the first time I have taught this course, and frankly, I'm pretty rusty on hypothesis testing. I used it when I took the course, touched on some of the ideas in Real Analysis, but other than than, not so much. If you have any suggestions feel free to share below!

Things I Tried Last Term

• Post Exam Reflection Prompts - I had students complete reflection prompts after they completed their second test, and for the most part it did not have the desired effect. Most of their writing was about the course structure, me, and how difficult the material was. My intent was for students to reflect on their performance, how they prepared, and what they want to do differently for the next exam. I have used these prompts in the past for final exams, which seemed to have the desired effect.
• Talk about National Adjunct Walkout Day - While I did not actually walkout, I did talk to students about adjuncts, how they are compensated, and how it affects each student's education. It was a difficult discussion for me to have, but I think it educated students on this important topic. The majority of students had no idea what I was talking about, and for the most part we had a good discussion about who is at the front of their classes. I am thinking of having a short discussion about adjuncts half-way through each course to raise awareness and inform students of what happens at their institutions.
• Using Subjective Measures for Grading - There were a few students this term that were borderline passing. This term I decided to look at their previous exams and really assess what mistakes they made. If they did not understand the basic concepts of the course I did not modify their grade. If it was clear that they understood the majority of the course material, I made an informed decision to modify their grade. Grades should reflect understanding, but purely numeric assessment would ignore my role as the instructor of the course. 

Recently Completed Projects

• Manuscript edit for a Geometry workbook - This was to align a text to the TEKS/TAKS. Fairly straightforward project, but had to negotiate the initial terms a bit more than I expected.
• Exam development for Pre-Calculus - Excellent project. Wrote a few exam questions, worked in telecommuting teams to review exam questions, and made a final 'difficulty' assessment.  

Projects on the Back Burner

• Video series on a specific math applications. 
• K-12 Teacher lesson prep materials.
• Developing this blog.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Want to tell me how full of it I am? Write below!

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 your classes?

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 fairly limited. However my time responding to emails and messages is quite a bit more than other classes. These students usually have quite a bit of anxiety, are new to the college experience, and need a bit more guidance than other students. I am happy to help these students, but it does change the focus of my energies.
• Algebra II - The next math course in the series is one I have not taught. There seems to be less support for this course so I am having to prepare quite a bit more. I am focusing on lectures paired with activities, and using the same online math homework as the previous course. Granted not the most innovative structure, but for teaching the course for the first time I'm feeling fairly confident about that choice. 
• College Algebra - Two sections of the first 100-level mat course which uses a flipped-classroom model. I have taught this course before so I don't envision many issues.

There isn't much I want to add to these courses, but I do want students more engaged with the discussion forums in our LMS. If you have any thoughts on how to do this, feel free to share.

The rest of the week I will be focusing on the following projects:

• Video series on a specific math application. 
• K-12 Teacher lesson prep materials.
• Developing this blog.
• Freelance projects for test develop, content development, and editing/writing for textbooks.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions, feel free to share below. Thanks for reading!

How I am teaching culinary math the second time around.

After teaching culinary math for the first time I've learned a few things, the most important being the primary student learning objective; Complete a recipe costing form. The course does discuss a few topics that are outside of this form, but this one objective contains about 90% of the course material. It might sound a bit funny, it takes teaching a course once to find out the real student learning objective, but as with many things in life "You truly learn something the first time you teach it."

For those of you in education you might be asking "What is a recipe costing form?" With a current average of 5.1% profits, maintaining high efficiency and cost control for restaurants is a necessity. To do that detailed records of how much everything costs must be kept, and the menu prices of dishes need to be firmly based on their costs. Simply put, a recipe cost form is used to determine how much it costs to make a recipe. With the base cost of the recipe, how many servings it will produce, and the target food cost for a restaurant (25-35%) a restaurant manager can get an idea of how much to price a dish. There are other things to consider (target clientele, location, marketing, etc.) but a recipe cost is a good starting point to base prices on.

This might sound simple, but there are a few ideas that need to be addressed. As an example, let's look at yield. If you order a pound of potatoes for $2.00, are you going to serve exactly that pound of potatoes? No, you have to skin, trim, and wash them first. You loose a certain amount of the weight (that you paid for), so you now have 87% of that pound (the yield). That pound of potatoes now costs $2.00/87%, or about $2.30. The terminology used is: as-purchased (AP) cost is $2.00/lb but the edible-portion (EP) is $2.30/lb. If a recipe calls for 3 pounds of prepared potatoes (skinned, trimmed, and cleaned) we simply multiply this amount by the EP cost of $2.30/lb to get $6.90. Do that for each of the ingredients, add them up and you have the final recipe cost. These forms setup these calculations in a consistent manner so they are easily done, can be read by other people, and different recipes can be compared. (There is an exception to using yield when a recipe calls for a number of something, like one whole apple. If you paid for each apple, not by the pound, yield isn't necessary since you didn't 'lose' a part that you paid for.)

All this is to say that these recipe costing forms are the true final assessments of the course, and using a backwards design model, the course should be focused on getting students to complete them. Thus all the assessments are going to target different aspects of these forms. To scaffold these skills I changed the learning activities (handouts) to include two parts:

1. An Exercises portion of various questions that we discuss in-class, with the answers provided at the end. I generally start the day with an example or a discussion of the idea, then do one of the first few questions, and slowly step back my instruction as students attempt more of the questions on their own.
2. A Graded portion that they are to turn in over the next few days. Answers are not provided, but they can work with each other.

To ensure students complete the Exercises portion I have a notebook check during test days where I review their notebook. These notebooks are not my idea, I have to thank Rhonda Hull at Clackamas Community College for the inspiration. She designed the MTH111 College Algebra course that I teach occasionally, and in addition to using a flipped classroom model, uses notebooks to ensure students are completing their work.

I also included a quiz each Wednesday, and a test every second Friday. I like the regularity of these assessments, in the hope that they reduce cognitive load on students, but also allows them to plan on these activities.

I'll make a few future posts about how this class goes, the one idea that is outside of the recipe costing form (kitchen ratios) and potentially about a new culinary math project. If you have any questions for me, about the course, my approach, the activities, or anything else, just post a comment below.

Thank you for reading!

Reflection: Teaching culinary math for the first time.

Last week marked the end of the math class I taught at a culinary school, and I wanted to reflect on how the term went. I'll have another post about what I intend to do for the next term, which started today

Before the course started I did a bit of my own research and found Culinary Math by Blocker and Hill to be immensely helpful. It provided much needed guidance on how to approach teaching certain topics, terminology used in the industry, and various forms and conversions. The school uses a college math textbook that is targeted to general undergraduate students. I have been told this is to save money, but was (and am) frustrated that there is a perfectly good text out there that addresses exactly the kind of knowledge students should know. In fact they used Culinary Math before this textbook. I recommended students buy Culinary Math for their own use, and a number of them did so. Powell's Books seems to have copies for around $17 (where I bought mine) so it didn't seem to be a big hardship for students to buy this in addition to the textbook.

At the start I was also worried about student's perception of me being a 'math person' and not being a 'culinary person'. Would they resist me talking about conversions, yields, and fractions because I had never worked in the kitchen? I tried to address it head-on by sharing my independent research, how I read books by chefs regularly, I consider myself a home cook and have made Thanksgiving dinner in addition to regular meals, and tried to be honest about where I was coming from. It seemed to make an impact as students were comfortable talking to me about recipes and other topics.

Before this class students had taken 3 6-week terms of culinary classes, and thus had quite a bit of culinary knowledge that I didn't. Because of this imbalance in understanding, I gave them much more leeway in explaining a concept or idea than in other undergraduate classes. Usually I have students attempt an explanation, but if they're getting off track I'll gently correct them by asking a question or pointing something out. Here I didn't feel comfortable doing that, and had students correct each other's arguments in-class. I wasn't explicit that this is what I was doing, but let it happened naturally.

The students themselves came from a wide range of backgrounds, experiences with math, and (most importantly) attitudes toward math. One student had pre-calculus classes in high school, others got through with the minimum, and one was home schooled. I tried to target most of the material on authentic examples, but also included 'naked' math questions to delineate if students were having issues with computations or with understanding a contextual question. This seemed to work for everyone, the high-anxiety students had their own understanding of the situations we were talking about (they had worked with measuring cups and volume measures before this class) and the low-anxiety students were able to rely on their previous math experiences.

Later this week I'll detail how I'm setting up the next section of this class. If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to share below!

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!