Category Archives: Liberal arts math
Thoughts while grading finals
I’m at a stopping point for the day in grading my GE 103 finals; the linear algebra final is coming up on Thursday. Unlike last year when I live-blogged my calculus final exam grading (it was on the old blog, … Continue reading
Filed under Education, Higher ed, Liberal arts math, Student culture, Teaching
What to do in GE 103 tomorrow?
Tomorrow in GE 103 I had scheduled to cover an overview of continuous fair division problems. But I am grading the test they took this morning on voting and discrete fair division, and it is an absolute train wreck. The … Continue reading
Filed under Higher ed, Liberal arts math, Teaching
Math reading follies, Wednesday edition
So yesterday’s GE 103 lab assignment was basically just an extended group exercise on using the Adjusted Winner Procedure. The students were in pairs to simulate a business partnership that was splitting up. The problem said: You need to divide … Continue reading
Filed under Education, Higher ed, Liberal arts math, Life in academia, Teaching
I blew it when phrasing this policy on my syllabus
Here’s a cautionary tale for all those writing syllabi: In the syllabus for GE 103, I set different levels of collaboration allowed for different kinds of assignments. No collaboration on timed assessments; some collaboration allowed on the informal level for … Continue reading
Filed under Education, Higher ed, Liberal arts math, Life in academia, Student culture, Teaching
On a positive note…
Perhaps because the last two posts have cast a somewhat negative light on my GE 103 class, I wanted to share this entry from a Feedback Journal that a student in the class turned in last week. Each week I … Continue reading
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Filed under Higher ed, Liberal arts math, Teaching
A problem of interest
An entire lab period in GE 103 was spent on using the amortization formula to calculate the monthly payment on a house, given the price of the house, the annual interest rate, and the term of the mortgage. Students did … Continue reading
Filed under Education, Higher ed, Liberal arts math, Math, Teaching, Uncategorized
Reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic
I’ve spent the better part of Friday and today grading GE 103 papers. In the process, I’m becoming more and more convinced that the single biggest roadblock to understanding mathematics, at least at the college level, is the ability to … Continue reading
Filed under Education, Higher ed, Liberal arts math, Student culture, Teaching
Random Thursday thoughts
I am giving a presentation on campus today on our trip to China to adopt our daughter. It’s a multi-media extravaganza, with photos, data graphs, video clips, and sound all rolled into a single Keynote presentation. It is the largest … Continue reading
Filed under Apple, Education, Higher ed, Liberal arts math, Life in academia, Personal, Student culture, Teaching, Technology
Physics for poets
This article came out a few days ago, but I’ve been too busy around here to blog about it until now. The pseudonymous author argues against science classes for non-majors — “physics for poets”, as he calls it — on … Continue reading
Filed under Education, Higher ed, Liberal arts math, Math, Teaching
Six things that I must make clearer to my students in the future
I am not grading your answer; I am grading the process by which you get the answer. Hence, a correct answer with no justification is worth little to no credit (unless it’s “state the definition of…” or a multiple choice); … Continue reading
Filed under Education, Higher ed, Liberal arts math, Teaching
