Dr. Sarah's Math 1010 Class Highlights

Dr. Sarah's Math 1010 Class Highlights Spring 2006 Page
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 Apr 24 review

  • Tues Apr 25 Collect personal reflection. Go over any remaining material from lab on Monday. Evaluations.
  • Thur Apr 20 Test 3
  • Mon Apr 10 SAT scores. Sound of the Big Bang, Modular arithmetic and check digits, Statistics Detective review.

  • Tues Apr 12 Review for statistics test, and relate DXC quotes to personal reflection.

  • Thur Apr 14 Take review questions. Share from the statistics in the media project. If time remains, complete the learning evaluation and formal evaluations.
  • Mon Apr 3 Heart of Math Interactive Histogram. Part 1 Part 2

  • Tues Apr 4 Discuss HDYK 3.4 #15 b) and c) resolution, and go over the discussion points on Monday's lab. Discuss the effect of teacher expectations on students, ask students to share experiences where teacher expectation affected them, and then discuss related quotes from NCTM. Discuss biased MRT instructions and ask students to share their reactions to them. Discuss gender and multicultural issues on test taking, and discuss stereotype vulnerability via students reading selections from FairTest Examiner Stereotypes Lower Test Scores, and Claude Steele has Scores to Settle. In groups of 2 or 3: Discuss situations where text anxiety or performance anxiety have hindered you. 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, math phobic, "good" or "bad" student...) where external expectations from someone else (teacher, society, parents, friends... ) affected your performance in one way or another. Groups share their experiences with the class. Relate to MRT test. Discuss things we would like to see to back up the articles. Discuss Lawrence Summers comments and Carolyn Gordon's response. Boxplot review. Women in math stats.

  • Thur Apr 6 Finish women in math stats critiques. Review literary digest poll on Roosevelt/Landon election from 1937. Discuss linear regressions of Buchanon votes in Palm Beach and the butterfly ballot and highlight the problems with making predictions far away from your data. Discuss Heart of Math readings by asking the class to share something from the reading. Unintended consequences via raising airline prices. Discuss HIV testing issues and unintended consequences of medical and policy decisions such as testing everyone in the US for HIV.
  • Mon Mar 26 Review the condo lab. Representations of Data Project.

  • Tues Mar 27 Discuss bar charts including how you can tell whether the mean will be above or below the mean. Discuss standard deviation (distance from home, height, untimed MRT), a bar chart of armspan containing mismeasurements, and discuss what happens when they are removed. Histograms (distance from home with a class size of 100), pie charts (class year), "bad" graphs. Intro to Boxplots via a boxplot of height separated by gender, and the meaning of boxplots. Boxplot of distance from home and of height separated by gender that includes outliers (ie how the boxplot changes when the outlier is removed).

  • Thur Mar 29Collect hw. Music choices and compatibility issues (measuring "difference" in music tastes via looking at vertical distance between points) music 1 music 2. Begin linear regression via does Volume predict High in stock market. Then do p. 211 # 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 HDYK 3.4 #15. Questions on Ben Franklin.
  • Mon Mar 20 Condo lab

  • Tues Mar 21 Go over homework and take questions. Finish Condo lab and then work on the study guide.

  • Thur Mar 23 Test 2
  • Mon Mar 6 Collecting Data Discuss Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers comments about innate abilities of women in mathematics and science. Mathematics in the brain. Gender differences on the MRT and the timed and untimed MRT test. Carolyn Gordon's response.

  • Tues Mar 7 Loan payment formula. Student loan statements. Condo work.

  • Thur Mar 9 Go over credit card statement and payday lender info. Go over ways to build good credit. Finish condo work and then work on HDYK Exercise Set 1.2 #9, 14, 21, 24 and Exercise Set 1.3 #8, 11 and be prepared to present them next week.
  • Mon Feb 27 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   Ben Franklin's Will - Update

  • Tues Feb 28 Go over Ben F activities. 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 the periodic payment formula and compare the philosophy to the lump sum formula derivation. Transparencies from class $100 is deposited each month for 12 years into an account compounding 5% monthly. How much do we end up with? We'll do an exercise to show that the number of digits we use does matter! 100 is deposited each month for 12 years into an account compounding 5% monthly. What do we have at the end? The interest rate is .05/12=.004166666... Each group of 3 used a different number of digits and rounding versus truncation methods (ie .004,.0041, .0042,.00416, .00417,.004166, .004167, .0041666, .0041667 ). The group helped each other with their calculators and made sure that they all came up with the same answer. We compared the final answers to show that we should never round until the final answer. If time remains then work on problems and then Jane and Joan.

  • Thur Mar 2 Go over $37 problems. 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 Feb 20 Presentations on Rudin, Morgan, and Daubechies. Finish up the thematic issues of the mathematician segment.

  • Tues Feb 21 Begin finance by talking about interest. Discuss simple interest, different interest bearing accounts, and taxes.
    cuneiform   babylonian   interest        
    CUNEIFORM TABLET
    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 episode. If time remains, begin compound interest.

  • Thur Feb 23 Begin lump sum formula via compounding annually. Then compounding quarterly, and then the general lum sum formula. Compounding monthly. 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 if
    -the bank will compound 8% each and every month (ie 96% per year!)
    -the bank means that 8% is the annual rate.
    Which 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.
  • Mon Feb 13 Presentations on Fuller, Agnesi, Gauss, and Germain. After each mathematician, go over related mathematics by answering the questions on the handout. RSA Coding Continued Decode the Message, and then search the web to find the meaning of the last word.

  • Tues Feb 14 Presentations on Cantor and Ramanujan. Review DodgeBall worksheet and use it for the Cantor worksheet. Sum of Two Cubes.

  • Thur Feb 16 Finish up the Sum of Two Cubes worksheet. Presentations on Erdos and Blackwell. Erdos worksheet
  • Mon Feb 6 Students share something from the "What is Math" quote searches. Carolyn Gordon PowerPoint and Carolyn Gordon worksheet. Extensions of the Pythagorean Theorem continued: FLT intro and Scarecrow's Theorem. Come back together and go over material. Intro to Powerpoint.

  • Tues Feb 7 The Proof A Nova video about Princeton University Professor Andrew Wiles and Fermat's Last Theorem. Fill out Andrew Wiles.

  • Thur Feb 9 Collect bullet points for mathematician project. Andrew Wiles worksheet. Dodge Ball
  • Mon Jan 30 Assign the mathematician project.   Geometry of our Universe. Begin tomorrow's homework.

  • Tues Jan 31 Review: Review the 4th physical dimension and its applications, the hypercube via excerpts from Davide Cervone's Selected Course Notes, why the universe is not thought to be a hypercube, 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. Complete the related Futurama worksheet. 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. The differences between the geometries and current attempts to determine the shape of the universe, including Cosmology News. Review Escher, Banchoff, and Weeks themes related to the Mathematician segment. Take questions.

  • Thur Feb 2 Test 1. Hand out mathematician references.
  • Mon Jan 23 Share something from the homework readings. Computer Information Sheet, 2D Universes, take try 1 of WebCT quiz. Class discussion on worksheet. Hand out Jeff Weeks worksheet due Thur. Time to work on Project 2.

  • Tues Jan 24 Collect geometry reports and begin going over answers to the geometry of the earth questions. Hand out the differences sheet.

  • Thur Jan 26 Share something from the homework readings and go over the worksheet activities. 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.
  • Mon Jan 16 MLKJ Holiday

  • Tues Jan 17 As a review, throw a ball around to share something from the homework readings or classes from last week. Handout geometry of our earth and universe assignment. Discuss some of the answers for hyperbolic geometry. First review models of hyperbolic geometry. Then
          Sketchpad Problem 1 and 2       Problem 1 and 2 Image,
          Sketchpad Problem 3       Problem 3 Image      
          Sketchpad Problem 4       Problem 4 Image
          Sketchpad Problem 5 Postulate       Problem 5 Image
          Sketchpad Problem 7 Postulate       Problem 7 Image.
    Highlight creative web searching info - the importance of a "-" a synonym, and quotes around phrases.

  • Thur Jan 19 Each student shares something from the readings. Hand back project 1 and discuss: Ask students about the purpose of a course Engligh course (should it be grammer and spelling?) and contrast with a core math course. Discuss that 0010 doesn't receive college credit as a core coarse, various core coarse options at ASU, and that at some other schools liberal arts math courses are very different and do not include real life applications or finance. Go over Are the Simpsons 2-D or 3-D? responses including the model who disappears from The Simpsons "Sleeping with the Enemy" and the PacMan sequence from Futurama "Anthology of Interest II" and a tiling view versus folding up the space. Brief intro to my own research and how it fits into these ideas, and my mathematical style in a powerpoint 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." Time to work on the geometry report.
  • Mon Jan 9 Fill out index sheets. Introductions. Brief intro to the course and model a search on
    history "liberal arts"
    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 video excerpts and discuss: Life By the Numbers Shape of the World (maps of the earth) and Seeing is Believing (perspective). Highlight the questions of what our world looks like, how we know, and how we represent it. Discuss course via the main web page, Syllabus and Grading Policies, and attendance policy. Mention office hours and begin Project 1 with Are The Simpsons 2-D or 3-D?.

  • Tues Jan 10 Review. Escher and the sum of the angles of a triangle in his work: Sun and Moon.   Worksheet on Escher.   (number 2).   Quotes from Escher on how he does mathematics and where it comes from. Introduction to Hyperbolic Geometry

  • Thur Jan 12 Share something from the readings on perspective drawing. Go through Readings and Activities on Perspective Drawing and Projective Geometry Be sure to fill in the paper copy of the worksheet as the material is presented. Watch Homer3 again and look for the use of perpective drawing.