Comments | hauntmeister: Learning from my failures and cutting my losses

hauntmeister

Learning from my failures and cutting my losses

Apr 24, 2009 17:59

I'm trying to get all my presentations for next week done. I'm aided by the fact that I've done this class (Algebra 2) for two years now, and further that one class ("Algebra Green") is running about three weeks ahead of the other one ("Algebra Red ( Read more... )

Comments 5

frobzwiththingz April 24 2009, 22:32:34 UTC

...gave them a second dose of rational inequalities

taken completely out of context, i really like that phrase. I'll have to find other situations in which to use it :-)

hauntmeister April 25 2009, 00:00:05 UTC

Good luck! And if you ever find such a situation, DO let me know!

ams16 April 24 2009, 22:52:55 UTC

I have no idea what a rational inequality is. Or even a rational equality. How about an irrational inequality? A transcendental irrational* inequality? (Algebraic equality sounds boring for some reason.)

Euler's identity always confuses people. See
http://xkcd.com/179/

*I know, this is redundant.

hauntmeister April 25 2009, 00:05:20 UTC

In all likelihood, they'll never use this for the rest of their lives.

I do my best to make it relevant. Exponential decay? That's March Madness, where half of the teams get eliminated every day! (roughly.) Exponental growth? Imagine cockroaches breeding in my basement! Logarithms? Decibels -- loud music -- is an exponential function. So are earthquakes on the Richter scale. You can use base e logarithms to calculate compound interest and find out how much that TV at Rent-A-Center, or those charges on your credit card, will really cost you.

But it can be a stretch sometimes.

jcgbigler April 26 2009, 23:20:54 UTC

Going over my presentations and notes, I see that I tried to give Algebra Green two topics -- rational equalities and rational inequalities in one day. They readily grasped the former, but not the latter. I dynamically readjusted and gave them a second dose of rational inequalities the next day, and they still didn't get it. And they're the "fast" class.

Sometimes, if one of my classes starts off with a bad experience in trying to learn something, they decide the topic is too hard and they shut down, and nothing I do from then on seems to make a difference. If Algebra Red grasps rational equalities after the first lesson, they might do OK with rational inequalities the next day. (Then again, they may not...)