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 Apr 23 Review Lab Hand back and go over test 3.

  • Tues Apr 24 Collect personal reflection. Go over the review lab. Take questions on the final project. Share final project abstracts. DXC reflection. Evaluations.
  • Mon Apr 16 Sound of the Big Bang, discussion of Ben Franklin project, discussion of the recent statistics in the media project, Statistics Detective review. Read through all the remaining links on the main web page. If time remains, then choose something to work on.

  • Tues Apr 17 Share from the statistics in the media project. Go over WebCT quiz questions that are turned in as homework. Review for statistics test. If time remains, relate DXC quotes to personal reflection.

  • Thur Apr 19 Test 3
  • Thur Apr 12 Share from Heart of Mathematics readings. 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. 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 Apr 2 Heart of Math Interactive Regression Line Regression Part 1 Regression Part 2

  • Tues Apr 3 Go over homework. Time to work on projects.

  • Thur Apr 5 Begin modeling critiques for Project 5 via the theme of success in mathematics: 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 the SAT and whether the SAT should predict college scores. 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. Women in math stats and studies, Representations of mathematicians, American Competitiveness, Leaving Boys Behind...
  • Mon Mar 26   Measures of Center

  • Tues Mar 27 Discuss homework. 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 29 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.
  • Mon Mar 19 Go over Web Problem. Then work on the Condo lab. If time remains, work on homework for Tuesday.

  • Tues Mar 20 Collect homework. Finish the Condo lab and work on 8.5x11 sheet with writing on both sides. Go over work and take questions on the WebCT quiz, etc.

  • Thur Mar 22 Test 2
  • Mon Mar 5 Collecting Data   Mathematics in the brain.

  • Tues Mar 6 Loan payment formula. Student loan statements. Condo work.

  • Thur Mar 8 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 26 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. If time remains, work on the Class Data Collection Sheet and the Stock HW.

  • Tues Feb 27 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. If time remains then work on problems and then Jane and Joan.

  • Thur March 1 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 Feb 19
  • Visualizing DNA   Campylobacter jejuni   E. Coli
  • Compute the area of a square and cube with perimeter/circumference of 4pi.   Shape of Bubbles   Double Bubble
  • digital image   pollen   pollen 2   Yoda   JPG vs wavelets   create a digital image
  • Finish up the thematic issues of the mathematician segment.
  • If time remains, work on Project 6

  • Tues Feb 20 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.

  • Thur Feb 22 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 12
  • One of Fuller's calculations
  • Living Witch of Agnesi
  • Gauss and Non-Euclidean geometry
  • Sophie Germain primes and Decoding the Message
  • Review DodgeBall worksheet and use it for the Cantor worksheet.

  • Tues Feb 13 Finish up work from Monday.
  • Hand out Sum of Two Cubes for homework and discuss Ramanujan's contributions and prime numbers.
  • Erdos worksheet

  • Thur Feb 15 Discuss Sum of Two Cubes worksheet. Recent Results
  • Friend or Foe, the Prisoner's Dilemna, and David Blackwell. I asked for two volunteers without telling the class why, and then had them play for money. At the same time, I asked every person in the class to mark down friend or foe, and then I did another round where I called on the people myself (using their previous choice). PowerPoint
  • Topology and Mary Ellen Rudin
  • Complex numbers, Evelyn Boyd Granville's Abstract, and orbit computations
  • Mon Feb 5 Hand back tests. Mention mathematician web references and Powerpoint tips. Share a web researched quote about what mathematics is and the person's name. Intro to video, The Proof A Nova video about Princeton University Professor Andrew Wiles and Fermat's Last Theorem. Fill out Andrew Wiles. If time remains, look at the mathematician web references and the Powerpoint tips

  • Tues Feb 6 Go over test. Andrew Wiles worksheet. Work on the Dodge Ball worksheet

  • Thur Feb 8 Search for a picture for Jeff Weeks. Demonstrate inserting a picture into PowerPoint, saving it as lastname.ppt and uploading it to the WebCT bulletin board. Mention the addition of one guideline. Carolyn Gordon PowerPoint and Carolyn Gordon worksheet. If time remains look at additional extensions of the Pythagorean Theorem: FLT intro and Scarecrow's Theorem.
  • Mon Jan 29 Class discussion about the homework readings. Geometry of the universe

  • Tues Jan 30 Break up into 13 groups and divide up the mathematicians. 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. Take questions on the study guide.

  • Thur Feb 1 Test 1
  • Mon Jan 22 Share something from the homework readings or the video from Thursday. Mention the Computer Information Sheet. 2D Universes and class discussion on worksheet. Hand out Jeff Weeks worksheet due Thur and the study guide for test 1.

  • Tues Jan 23 Collect geometry reports and begin going over answers to the earth questions.

  • Thur Jan 25 Review class from Tuesday. share something from the homework readings or the Jeff Weeks worksheet. 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." Discuss the mathematician segment. If time remains, begin the DodgeBall worksheet and play a few games of HEXI.
  • Mon Jan 15 MLKJ Day

  • Tues Jan 16 Review Escher's space. Discuss a computer model of Escher's space called hyperbolic geometry.
          Sketchpad - Straight Lines in Hyperbolic Geometry       Image.
    Discuss Playfair's Postulate.
          Sketchpad - Parallels 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). Discuss the problems in Project 2. Share something from Project 1. Go over Are the Simpsons 2-D or 3-D? responses including the PacMan sequence from Futurama (Anthology of Interest II) and a tiling view versus folding up the space (where PacMan would see his back). Review main web page including updated homework. Mention learning evaluations again. Discuss Watauga College.

  • Thur Jan 18 In groups, discuss what you would like to see in a Watauga Math class - content, teaching and learning methods... Groups share their ideas. 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. Discuss the video. Hand back project 1 and go over the grading. Discuss WebCT bulletin board posting for Monday and hw readings from main page. If time remains, you can work on Project 2.
  • Mon Jan 8 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. Perform a related web search. 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. Begin Project 1 with Are The Simpsons 2-D or 3-D?. Discuss course via the main web page, Syllabus and Grading Policies, and attendance policy. Mention office hours. Time to work on Project 1.

  • Tues Jan 9 Review and go over the syllabus. 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. Advice from previous students about success in class via learning evaluations. Class time to discuss Project 1.

  • Thur Jan 11 Share something from the readings on perspective drawing or that you learned in the last class. 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.