kiana
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Posts posted by kiana
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1 hour ago, TheAttachedMama said:
The downside to this system is that *I* am doing all of the organizing and planning for him. For example, if he is assigned a mid-term essay or research project, I tend to break it down into smaller daily tasks and put them on his checklist. Same thing with quizzes. If I see a test is ahead, I will add daily study sessions. Basically, I am acting as his brain.
I think that one thing that would help him start to get ready for college is having him input those daily study sessions for himself. He'll still need prompting at this age, I am sure, but just the idea of breaking that up and adding it to your own calendar would be a huge step-up.
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11 hours ago, EKS said:
Interesting. I am supposed to take a class called Bridge to Abstract Mathematics next term which I think is essentially Intro to Proofs. I was kind of looking forward to it (and if they focus on discrete math, that's great as far as I'm concerned).
It will be your college's intro to proofs. Sometimes it is taught more as a discrete math course, sometimes it is taught to briefly introduce concepts that will be covered in more depth in abstract algebra/analysis. Either way, though, given the posts I've seen you make over the years, I expect you to enjoy it.
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12 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:
I've actually always been dubious about Intro to Proofs as a class. I feel like doing proofs in the context of something you care about works better... whereas the Intro to Proofs class, at least where I've taught it, was often discrete math no one cared about. Kids would come out of it thinking there were 4 different types of proofs, one of which was always induction 😛 . They didn't really get that a proof was just a logical argument.
I remember giving kids an exercise in linear algebra where they were supposed to find wrong steps in other proofs, and they really had no idea how to do this 😕 . They weren't able to think about logical statements in that way.
Interestingly, discrete math/intro to proofs was when I changed my major TO math. Before that, it was just computation, and it wasn't hard and it was fun to solve problems, but it was kind of a snoozefest.
Yes, I love exercises where they need to find wrong steps in proofs. I also love the exercises Fraleigh uses in his algebra textbook where students are to write a one-sentence or two-sentence summary of the proof.
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On 7/9/2021 at 4:23 PM, EKS said:
I wonder how often people are able to memorize their way through proofs like that though--successfully I mean. I could see doing it for really basic stuff, but not for something that requires more than a few "moves."
I've seen people memorize every step for abstract algebra proofs, and be able to duplicate them, but completely unable to explain a step or recognize a similar problem that required the same technique. They could write it out, but they didn't understand why we might make a specific statement.
I'm not sure what the relative proportion was, compared to the general population; these, unfortunately, were math majors who had made it almost all of the way through by being excellent at memorizing. It didn't help that the person who taught intro to proofs (the prerequisite) that year really wasn't good at it.
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I would agree that college algebra is probably not a good placement here.
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For self-teaching, quite honestly any college beginning algebra would be fine.
I think Martin-Gay would be a good fit (developmental math, algebra foundations, beginning algebra would all work).
Lial is fine too, I like beginning algebra slightly more than introductory algebra.
Sullivan's developmental math text is a little more rigorous but may be more so than needed. We use it for our STEM prep courses but not for our people who just need to take college algebra.
If possible I'd try to get one with a matching student solutions manual so that she can have the detailed answers to the odd/even questions.
I'd also recommend a Schaum's outline for a large collection of worked examples in a very affordable text.
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What about Lynn Osen's "Women in Mathematics" book from 1975? I felt it was pretty similar to "Men of Mathematics"; it's a little dated on the "where we are today" section but good short biographies.
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Does your local community college have a math for liberal arts type course? This is generally a much less algebraically intense course than any other math course (I would say algebra 1a would be enough, or a strong prealgebra), and if he could DE, he would be able to transfer the credit and it would count for GE for most non-STEM and non-business majors.
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I'm not sure about other states, but I know at least one that does college algebra, trig, precalc algebra as 3 3cr courses. There is also a 4cr precalculus algebra/trig for people who get an A/B in college algebra.
It's very common to have a two-semester sequence that is college algebra and then precalc, the 3-semester is a little bit more uncommon.
My guess is that they found that people with a C in college algebra were failing precalc in droves but couldn't really tighten up on standards in college algebra any more and so put this on as a sequence intended to help the C students review + consolidate. But that's just speculation. The college algebra scope + sequence does look pretty standard.
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I agree that I'd avoid a math break of a semester if he's going to look at a business degree.
They usually require stats and very, very often a "calculus for business" course. The good news is that the calculus for business course usually doesn't cover trig, but the bad news is that it does usually expect solid college algebra skills. I've taught this course several times, although only once recently, and weak algebra skills are what tank a lot of the students.
I agree with going for a solid precalculus course, and then if you have time doing some calc-lite with MUS.
If you just want to dip your toes into statistics, David Lippman's Math in Society is free and has a nice trio of chapters on statistics, describing data, and probability. They're pretty standalone.
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Don't give up, a lot of times finishing strong and especially putting in consistent effort will cause a borderline grade to get pushed over the edge.
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It's incredibly depressing right now especially with the total inability to be sure that someone's actually heard something. I can't tell you how much I hate this. I spend more time emailing, nagging, and dealing with people who didn't read the directions that were literally IN THE NAME OF THE ASSIGNMENT, or people who are just getting started on a course that started a month ago. I'm pretty much in "fine, whatever" mode. The homework's open. Knock yourself out. Yes the late penalty applies. If you get up to any of the assignments that don't autograde I'll grade it. Since I have only rarely seen someone who missed the first week of class pass the class I'm not really worried about consistency in grading on those extremely late assignments. I'm just a grading nagging robot right now and the way-behind people are turning in so little and so late that trying to explain to them why it's not a good use of their time would take more time than just saying "ok, the assignments are over there, let me know when you're ready for the first test."
I do agree with open cc education but what I'd really like to see more of is mandatory time off for people who are just goofing around. I think that if someone has a 0.0 gpa from 5 years ago and has been working a job since, I'm totally okay with funding them for another shot. Lord knows my freshman gpa was terrible enough.
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We are online for spring for sure, other than some health sciences + fine arts + lab classes.
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Pearson mylab has gotten a lot better. I am using it now.
One of the nice things is that if you want to ask a question and they don't have questions like that you can import questions from any textbook on the topic. You can search by learning objective or by title of text. You can also write your own questions and/or modify/edit questions.
There are a lot of guided visualizations and animations that can be very helpful if they are enabled.
Depending on the textbook the accompanying videos range from "meh" to "very good".
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9 hours ago, HollyDay said:
Dds classes updated to 2 online, 1 synchronous online, 1 hybrid (either once a week or twice a month). But that is not cut in stone. They keep "kicking the can" further down the road. Now the "hard deadline is Aug 14. Since she is under 21, if she keeps the hybrid class, she will have to live in the dorm. It is a pre req class for most of the rest of her 2nd major. But, who knows what the fall will bring? She would rather be 100% online. Maybe it is time to look into universities who offer online degrees in Math and Computer Science?
Can she take that one class somewhere else and transfer it in? Living in a dorm in a COVID situation for a class that meets once a week sounds utterly ridiculous.
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3 hours ago, kand said:
I think in this particular thread, people are mostly not particularly worried about their student dying of Covid, but are talking about the consequences to the kid’s education if they come down with it and miss a lot of class. Even if the kid feels okay, they can’t go to class if they have Covid. And those who are symptomatic can be out for a very long time. I’m assuming colleges know this is likely to be the case, and professors will have allowances for this, but I haven’t heard yet how that will work. Perhaps the drop policy will just be different this year. That would help a lot if students can drop classes without a hit to their transcript.
I would expect drop policies to be very generous under such circumstances. Unless it's right at the beginning of the semester, incompletes are also options; this would apply especially to a student who got ill and was able to work some but not quite to keep up.
If your student does become ill, try to have them just drop a note either to instructors or to someone in the dean of students office depending on the policy for your college; if the instructor knows what's going on they can work with the student.
I would much rather write makeup tests for later than assign poor grades to someone who's unwell and trying to soldier through.
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1 hour ago, MamaSprout said:
Are there any drawbacks to switching to the N-Spire CAS? How do you know if she'll be able to use it in a college course? I know one of her potential colleges uses Maple instead of calculators, but I would just be guessing on the others. She'll probably be through the calculus sequence before she graduates high school.
It is VERY common to ban Nspire on tests due to the algebraic manipulation capabilities.
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43 minutes ago, Kassia said:
We are too, but dd is going OOS and I don't know what to do about flights. I can get great nonstop flights in August for an excellent price. Do I take the risk or wait?
I really wouldn't get a nonrefundable flight now.
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Whether they open or not, I see most with a tremendously expanded online/hybrid schedule in order to try to retain their students/faculty who are high-risk or live with high-risk people, or are international and can't get back into the country.
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43 minutes ago, Hoggirl said:
I am curious as to how faculty are feeling about returning to in-seat instruction in the fall? I have a professor friend who is close to 70 and has high blood pressure. She says she will refuse to return to in-seat classrooms in the fall even if her university opens. I am going to be interested to see what the repercussions of such a stance will be for her. She believes her university MUST allow her to teach online if that is what she wants to do. I’m not sure about that and what legal implications might come into play. Anyway...
Are any of you giving thought to how you will personally proceed if your institution makes a choice different from what you feel comfortable with? Also, if you have never taught online before, how have your recent experiences impacted your perception of online instruction, in general?I wouldn't want to be the department chair who denied a vulnerable person an online courseload. Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen, + it seems plausible that a good lawyer could stretch it to an ADA issue although I'm not a lawyer.
But this was one of the issues several people were very vocal about in our last faculty meeting (including people who are NOT in vulnerable populations but just worried about colleagues) and I wouldn't doubt that it helped the college's decision to stay online for fall.
I think that even if courses are meeting in-person for fall, professors will need to provide a significant online component and be very flexible because we still may have students who are ill or exposed and need to self-quarantine, and the whole semester could get moved online again.
I have never taught online. I'm surprised because it's not going as badly as I thought but I still hate it.
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28 minutes ago, regentrude said:
And with respect to infectious disease, that makes sense HOW? Because classes are a hotbed of germs, but dorms and clubs aren't?
Or because the quality of education is secondary compared to the fun aspect of the "college experience"?More likely because they want the revenue from campus housing and board.
I might be a bit cynical ... but I bet that's a strong consideration.
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Joyless pretty much sums it up.
My college is now pretty sure we'll be online for fall for anything other than possibly courses like health sciences and studio arts and the like.
I am full of dread.
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On 4/15/2020 at 11:42 AM, dmmetler said:
I have a friend in admin at a school here and her school is planning to go to hybrid classes or online classes for fall. So, in a week there would be one physical session and online assignments, and only 1/2 or 1/3 of the students would come at a time. Labs would be physical, but spread out, so, again, a smaller group of students would be in the lab at a time.
Big lecture only classes will be online and have digital help sessions/recitation sessions with smaller groups.
To me, it sounds like they'll either need a lot of TAs and SA's-or the professors are going to be doing about 3x/work per section.
Not quite 3x. Because I'd basically be prepping one classwork/here are the hardest parts for this week and doing it 3 times instead of prepping 3 lectures, but then I'd also have to prep the online stuff.
It is prepping the online stuff that is going to be the hugest amount of work and being able to meet with my students once a week might actually reduce the amount because I'd spend less time anal-retentively working on ways to do what I KNOW is the hardest stuff without ever meeting them.
Math after Algebra 2 for a Senior who is DONE with math, but is college bound?
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
If she is looking at an Art major, what about some kind of math for liberal arts class? Ideally DE (because then she would have 0 math classes to take in college) but at home would work too.
Statistics would be a good choice as well -- again if DE is available it might mean she has no math classes at all in college, which could be a huge bonus for someone who just wants to be done.