There’s a new post at my new blog .
Another example of something powerful in mathematics that seems at first meaningless to the students is the name of properties (distributive, associative, etc.) However, the full payoff only comes in abstract algebra (which most students will never take!) so it wasn’t as good as an example as functions.
This is being updated weekly now so unless I need to make a supplemental post I don’t plan to update here each time there’s a new post. (I do plan to still update here. I have a magic trick I tried with my students last week I’d like to write about.)
Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)
- When vocabulary isn’t the issue
- Math Videogame Scorecard
- A reading experiment
- How to Lessen My Workload
Filed under: Education , Mathematics
Standardized Test Class.
So my summer program is officially done, and while I’m going on vacation next week with my wife (it’s been two years, we desparately need one) I should be able to get back to writing with more regularity.
I have a new class next year called AIMS Math. AIMS is the standardized test in Arizona that students must pass to graduate. The class is for seniors who have not passed the AIMS yet.
So, the skills vary wildly across the board, including some special education. There’s no real set curriculum since teachers are still experimenting, so I get to plan this out on my own.
The only directive: get students to pass the test and graduate.
How we can reach that is up to me. We’ll need to review some things not normally thought of by algebra teachers — i.e. the times tables — and simultaneously we need to cover (pretty much) all of algebra and geometry in an entire semester.
I figure it will help to write my thoughts out, so I’m going to write them out here where I hope to simultaneously pick the brains of all you smart people out there.
(To those out there who think I might be going through hell in a handbasket working on a standardized test class, well, it isn’t so bad. It’s just reviewing math, really. I have no plans to grind test questions a la The Wire.)
Filed under: Education , Personal