Dr. Sarah's Math 1010 Class Highlights

Dr. Sarah's Math 1010 Class Highlights
The following is NOT HOMEWORK unless you miss part or all of the class. See the Main Class Web Page for ALL homework and due dates.

  • Mon Dec 8 Review lab

  • Tues Dec 9 Go over the review lab. Take questions on the final project. Present final project abstracts. Course Evaluations.
  • Mon Dec 1
    1. Do a stock market update #2.
    2. On the front board, mark off whether update 1 was a gain or loss and whether update 2 was a gain or loss by adding them to the relevant gain/loss columns.
    3. Use the syllabus to give yourself a participation grade out of 20. The average participation grade from last semester was 16/20, which is what is listed on the ASULearn grades. A perfect 20/20 means perfect attendance, turning in the non-graded homework, being prepared for class, actively participating in class discussions and activities, and taking at least one try of each ASULearn quiz.
    4. Message your self-evaluation on participation to Dr. Sarah on ASULearn along with feedback on group work effectiveness [if you feel you deserve the same grades as your partners, just say so. If not, please explain why you deserve a higher or lower grade and specify which project(s) this relates to and the name(s) of your partner(s).]
    5. Write down (to turn in) something you found interesting, disagreed with, or had a question on in each of the 4 readings referred to in Project 6
      1. Adding up Fuzzy Math: Teaching the Basics
      2. Quantitative Literacy
      3. Creative Inquiry Lessons for Life
      4. What is Mathematics Quotations and Readings [on ASULearn] ]
      and 5. something from Project 5 to share with the class tomorrow.
    6. So you will have 5 items total. Turn these in. Then you may use the rest of the time to work on project 6 for tomorrow or the final project (either in the lab or you may leave to work elsewhere).
  • Tues Dec 2 Share from Project 5 and Project 6. Discuss final project and lab on Monday. Discuss stock market. Go over test 2 and test 3.

  • Thur Dec 4 Use class time to go to the library or Dr. Sarah's office. At least one of your references for the final project must be a book from one of these two places. I will be in my office during class.
  • Mon Nov 24 Statistics Detective

  • Tues Nov 25 Test 2.
  • Mon Nov 17 Use the lab time to go to the Current Periodicals section on the lower level of the library. At least one of your articles for Project 5 must be from here.

  • Tues Nov 18 Collect homework. Review literary digest poll on Roosevelt/Landon election from 1937. Highlight the problems with making predictions. Discuss linear regressions of Buchanan votes in Palm Beach and the butterfly ballot. Discuss the following student quotation: Even recently in our own Appalachian State newspaper they had a poll for McCain/Obama and it looked like McCain was winning by a landslide here, but the poll is an online poll and you can take it as many times as you want...

  • Thur Nov 20 Discuss the homework readings and the theme from Carolyn Gordon's research of numerous conclusions from a complete set of measurements. Discuss unintended consequences of HIV testing, raising airline prices. Take questions on the study guide or the ASULearn quiz. Give each person a few minutes to come up with 1 truth and 1 lie. Use the random number sequence generator to call on students to come to the front of the room. Student gives name, and their statements, and the class decides. Relate to statistics.
  • Mon Nov 10 Follow the directions for Update #1 on the Stock Market Data sheet. Can We Predict the Future? Stocks, Class Data, and Raw Egg Regressions

  • Tues Nov 11 Discuss the lab. Use the random number sequence generator. Skits on classroom success and related studies. etc.

  • Thur Nov 13 Collect homework. Discuss ethics of data. We wish for many studies repeated by many people to attempt to isolate hidden, underlying issues. How should we personally and as a society respond (locally, globally) to statistical studies such as those that are environmental, like tuna fishing, etc. Begin modeling critiques for Project 5 via the theme of success in mathematics: Here's Good News... SAT scores are declining at a slower rate. Discuss the effect of teacher expectations on students. Review the biased MRT instructions. Discuss the SAT and whether the SAT should predict college scores. Read selections from FairTest Examiner Stereotypes Lower Test Scores and Claude Steele has Scores to Settle. Discuss whether you or someone you know have ever experienced something similar to stereotype vulnerability as part of some kind of group (for example, gender, race, ``good" or ``bad" student, older sibling, hair color, athlete, southern accent...) where external expectations from someone else (teacher, society, parents, friends...) affected your performance in one way or another. Analyze and critique the articles and discuss things we would like to see or know to back them up. Look at studies related to gender differences and stereotype vulnerability. Discuss Heart of Mathematics readings.
  • Mon Nov 3 Stock Market Data. Representations of Data

  • Tues Nov 4 Use the random number sequence generator. Discuss Measures of Centers homework. Share from Chapter 3 Section 1 of How Do You Know. Go over the lab. Review bar chart including how you can tell whether the mean will be above or below the median and standard deviation. A bar chart of armspan containing mismeasurements, and discuss what happens when they are removed. Pie charts. Histogram of the ASULearn random number from 1 to 10. poll and histogram. Excel analyses, including the observed value, the value expected if the data was equally distributed, the chi-square test and the p-value (are the observations statistically significant or can the differences be ascribed to random variations of chance?).

  • Thur Nov 6 Collect homework. Music choices and compatibility issues (measuring "difference" in music tastes via looking at vertical distance between points) music 1, music 2. December, 1969 Vietnam Draft, data, introduction to scatterplot, line of best fit, and boxplots. Starr [relate to the theme of shifting viewpoint, like Andrew Wiles]. Boxplot of height separated by gender that includes outliers (ie how the boxplot changes with the outlier is removed). "Bad graphs" Linear regression via does Volume predict High in stock market. Then do How Do You Know p. 185# 11. Discuss the actual predictor value, the estimated predictor values from a graph or via a line fit by eye, and related issues. Linear Regression worksheet and How Do You Know 3.4 #15 parts b) and c).
  • Mon Oct 27 Condo and Car Purchases: Decisions, Decisions. Look at homework for Tuesday.

  • Tues Oct 28 Take questions on the study guide and the ASULearn Material Review Questions for Test 2. Review problems.

  • Thur Oct 30 Test 2.
  • Mon Oct 20 Anonymous Class Data Collection.

  • Tues Oct 21 Discuss interest rates, currency, and debt in NC, the US, and the world.

  • Thur Oct 23 Go over credit card statement and payday lender info. Go over ways to build good credit. Introduce Monday's lab.
  • Mon Oct 13 Intro to Goal Seek and Solver in Excel via Lisa's Thrifty Savers savings account from Bart the Fink. Ben Franklin's Will - Part 1. Work on homework until we come back together to discuss questions 8-10.

  • Tues Oct 14 Go over $37 problems and formulas. Go over Jane and Joan extra credit (excel sheet) by using goal seek to discuss what interest rate would result in equal savings for them both. Do problems by hand and/or on Excel. Picture of Excel work, Excel work file, Picture of Excel solutions, Excel solution file. Go over main class web page and Ben Franklin writing project. Highlight the Dec 2002 $315 Powerball winner in Hurricane, West Virginia who had a choice of 30 annual payments or one lump sum payment of $170.5 million.
  • Mon Oct 6 Terrance Tao (1975 - ) by Alisha, Leah, Melissa, and Tyler
    Heart of Mathematics infinitely many primes, Arbitrarily Long Progressions of Primes, World Records, Open Problems
    Finish up the thematic issues of the mathematician segment.
  • Begin finance. How much money do you have with you? Wall Street tumbles amid global sell-off Discuss simple interest, different interest bearing accounts, and taxes.
    cuneiform   babylonian   interest        
    Cuneiform Tablet
    Plimpton Cuneiform 322 and interpreting data
    usury   interest   Babylonian   money        
    Usury is Piracy
    Quotes on taxes.
    Watch Homer get into tax trouble in Trouble with Trillions. Search for Homer's paycheck and then fill out a tax return together for Homer Simpson. Discuss advice for Homer based on the segment.

  • Tuesday Oct 7 Discuss 142 years compounding monthly versus annually. Each student comes up with their own formula. Discuss what you would do if you had $1 million to spend in 24 hours and the ethics of spending. Real-life bank situation. Past student was told that her c.d. will be compounded monthly at 8% for 8 months, and is told that this 8% will apply each and every month. Let's say that she put in $1000. How much would her c.d. be worth at the end of 8 months? What did the bank really mean? Discuss other possibilities for unknowns in the lump sum formula - the time length, the rate, or the number of times compounding per year, and set up the Simpsons thrifty saver account for Monday.

  • Thur Oct 9 Review lump sum formula and the philosophy we used to come up with it and review how much we will end up with if $100 is deposited into an account and left alone for 25 years, compounded monthly at 5%. Compare to $100 deposited every month into an account and left alone for 25 years, compounded monthly at 5%. Work towards periodic payment understanding and compare the philosophy to the lump sum formula derivation and to Andrew Wiles and Fermat's Last Theorem (philosophy slides). Transparencies from class $100 is deposited each month for 12 years into an account compounding 5% monthly. If time remains then work on problems and then Jane and Joan.
  • Mon Sep 29
    Leonardo Pisano Fibonacci (1170-1250) by Kate, Jessica, and Meghan
    http://educ.queensu.ca/~fmc/may2002/RabFib.htm   pinecone   spiral 1   spiral 2   spiral 3   spriral 4   sprial 5 Mention Heart of Mathematics p. 58.
    Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) by Anna D, Anna S, and Tracy
    Perspective Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, Polyhedra, Vitruvian Man. Measure your forearm. Measure your hand. What is the ratio of forearm/hand? Mention Heart of Mathematics p. 235.
    Explore ideas systematically
    Look for a pattern
    Create abstract ideas by modeling nature
    Unexpected patterns are often a sign of hidden, underlying structure.
    Explore the consequences of new ideas.
    Understand simple things deeply.
    Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642) by Alex K and Mason
    falling bodies and gravity and motion experiments
    Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) by Ben and Tim
    model of the universe

  • Tues Sep 30
    Rene Descartes (1596-1650) by Andrew and Jenna
    Cartesian coordinates in 2-D and 3-D and analytic geometry
    Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) by Anna B. and Halie
    Gambling with Dice. Pascal's triangle. Omar Khayyam, Yang Hui's (1238-1298) Triangle, Diagonals 1, Diagonals 2, Quincunx Mention Heart of Mathematics p. 527.
    Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) by Alex N., Emily, and Leigh Ann
    Polar Chart. worksheet Pie chart and polar chart of birth month.

  • Thur Oct 2
    David Blackwell (1919 - ) by Coyia and Kerri
    Friend or Foe
    Stephen Hawking (1942 - ) by Beth, Danger, and Qaitlin
    Quote, Stephen Hawking's Universe
    David X Cohen (1966 - ) by Cat, Kevin, and Meggie
    Flipping pancakes, Burnt pancakes, Bacteria Pancakes, Article, E. Hop
    Danica McKellar (1975 - ) by Jessie and Lindsay
    Magnetised Iron Bar
  • Mon Sep 22 Hand back tests. Discuss the segment themes of what a space is, how we know, and how we represent it and the broader course themes of what mathematics is, how we represent it, how it is useful and how people succeed at math. We will look at What is a Mathematician? from a sociological perspective using a forward historical progression (in order to discuss the mathematician in the context of societal influences). You will choose the content we cover next week. The Proof. A Nova video about Princeton University Professor Andrew Wiles and Fermat's Last Theorem. Work on homework for Tuesday and Thursday.

  • Tues Sep 23 Each student presents a short quote about what mathematics is and why they chose that quotation. Discuss The Proof, and an Andrew Wiles worksheet.

  • Thur Sep 25 Finish worksheet from Tuesday. Carolyn Gordon PowerPoint and Carolyn Gordon worksheet. Dr. Sarah gives groups feedback about Project 3 as groups work on their digital project.
  • Mon Sep 15 Geometry of our Universe

  • Tues Sep 16 Review activities. Recall Group Juggle. Go over the lab. Play a section from Flatland the Movie. Review the 4th physical dimension and its applications, and some of the shapes that might be the shape of the universe: Euclidean 10 Euclidean possibilities, including Escher's "Another World" and the Futurama video reference to Escher's 1953 "Relativity" when Fry and Bender look for an apartment. Spherical a number of the infinite but known spherical possibilities via Davide Cervone's Spheres Sliced in 2D and 3D and excerpts from Week's paper on Topological Lensing in Spherical Spaces page 1, page 12, and the relationship to the Spherical Applet, and Hyperbolic current mathematical attempts to classify the hyperbolic possibilities, including the Weeks example. Review current attempts including Cosmology News. Examine Curved Spaces (Basic spaces with the Galaxy view). Take questions.

  • Thur Sep 18 Test 1.
  • Mon Sep 8 Collect homework. 2D Universes Lab. If time remains, work on project 2 or the homework readings for Thursday. Organize the class into problems they are working on for discussions.

  • Tues Sep 9 Go over Project 2 problems 1-7, and briefly discuss problems 8-11.

  • Thur Sep 11 Collect reflections on the hw readings. Time for questions or comments. Address connections to Tuesday's class. Jeff Weeks worksheet. Brief intro to my own research and how it fits into these ideas, and my mathematical style in a digital presentation that is a model for the next segment. Highlight the theme of diverse ways to succeed in mathematics and "making the material your own." The Shape of Space Video - this 11-minute animated video produced by The Geometry Center introduces the two-dimensional space of flatland, looks at possible shapes for flatland from the perspective of three dimensions, and represents those shapes of space in two dimensions. Then the animation uses the same kind of representation to look at possible shapes for three-dimensional space. Viewers are taken on a ride across the boundless three-dimensional surface of a three-torus and a four-dimensional Klein bottle. As viewers see these imaginary universes from inside the spaceship, they experience the illusion of seeing copies of the universes. I, Roommate from Futurama universe activity.
  • Tues Sept 2 Share from the round earth. Where is North? Review Escher's space. Discuss a computer model of Escher's space called hyperbolic geometry.
          Sketchpad - Straight Lines in Hyperbolic Geometry       Image.
    Discuss the sum of the angles in a triangle as well as the Pythagorean Theorem in Hyperbolic geometry via the hyperbolic worksheet. Discuss physical models of small pieces of hyperbolic space. Extra credit crochet model of hyperbolic geometry (for me to keep). Count number of letters in first name and pair up with someone who has the same number of letters and find something you have in common. Then share the names and the commonality. Reflect on the relationship to class - start with a topic, look at it from a mathematical viewpoint, find common patterns, and relate it back to real-life. Discuss the problems in Project 2

  • Thur Sept 4 Selections cut from PBS Life by the Numbers: Seeing is Believing Video: Modern artists and mathematicians are trying to grapple with the 4th physical dimension. Mathematics helps define space and helps present visions of our world to us. Tom Banchoff as a mathematician. Shape of the World video: Viewers see how mathematics has become a tool to explore the heavens as the cosmos is charted. Class concentrates on what our universe looks like, how we know, and how we represent it. In addition, the class examines how the mathematicians discuss doing mathematics and where it comes from. Discuss the video. Hand back project 1 and go over the grading. 2-D creature movements of the caterpillar turning into a 3-D movement butterfly. PacMan sequence from Futurama (Anthology of Interest II) and a tiling view versus folding up the space (where PacMan would see his back). Davide Cervone's Cube Projections. Group Juggle.
  • Tues Aug 26 Fill out index sheets. Introductions. Brief intro to the course. Begin geometry of our earth and universe. Discuss How could we tell that the earth is round instead of flat without using any technology (ie if we were ancient Greeks)? Make a list of ideas on the board. Watch 10 minute video excerpts and prepare to share something to discuss: Life By the Numbers Shape of the World (maps of the earth) and Seeing is Believing (perspective). Write down something you found interesting, disagreed with, or that you wish had been shown. Highlight the questions of what our world looks like, how we know, and how we represent it. Highlight Danny Glover's discussion that the earth is finite but has no edges, that a flat map of the earth must contain some distortion, and Sam Edgerton's views that perspective -> industrial revolution, that perspective is learned - not innate, and that we must distort the work to give the illusion of depth. Apply ideas to Are The Simpsons 2-D or 3-D?. If time remains, discuss course via the main web page, ASULearn Postings, homework, and learning evaluations.

  • Thur Aug 28 Share something from the readings on perspective drawing, the syllabus, or class on Tuesday. ASULearn Postings. Readings and Activities on Perspective Drawing and Projective Geometry and related handout. Escher and mathematical clues he left in his work: Sun and Moon.   Worksheet on Escher.   (number 2). Quotes from Escher on how he does mathematics and where it comes from. Discuss whether mathematics arises from nature or whether we impose our mathematical discoveries onto nature.