Tell them what they did right.

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What’s the most important thing to tell my students tomorrow? Duh. I need to tell them what they did right on the first day. The introductions were awesome. I picked up more names than I expected too. I like that they embraced meeting someone new. They participated. I gave everyone (including those late) a participation point for the day.

In the early part of the semester, I’m mostly working on tools for success. Getting students participating in class and talking to each other and me. Getting students using LaTeX and Matlab and feeling somewhat comfortable with these. Getting students comfortable with asking for help, because they won’t be able to solve every LaTeX or Matlab problem on their own…and then we have to understand the mathematical concepts of what we are doing and know how to explain them in writing.

I generally do a fine job with that.

I often don’t do a good job of getting them to look at the many interesting examples of mathematical models. I have many articles linked up on the course home page, most are to popular press and general interest articles, so they tend toward fun to read and non-technical.

I don’t do a good job of getting students brainstorming what they might like to do for their final projects. In fact, I need to put some guidelines about this somewhere on my website!

I’ve thought about doing brainstorming in class about final projects, but I haven’t done it. We might start by brainstorming what we might like to do, or, if we have absolutely no idea, we could brainstorm on what are some important problems facing the world today. From there we can brainstorm on how math might help, how to get started, where to start. A few easy steps might yield an interesting result. Or not. If not, will I have wasted that much time?

Some potential side benefits even if it is a mostly failed experiment: maybe I will spark some interest or get them thinking about how math is applied somewhere. Maybe someone will do a Google search that they wouldn’t have otherwise done and learn something. Maybe someone will read an article or watch a video that they otherwise wouldn’t have … and learn something. Any of those would be a nice outcome. And those are all plausible outcomes.

I think the 1 minute brainstorm/just scribble ideas down storm is a good one. I am wondering how to better use it for class. We did a lot of this on Tuesday!

I looked back over my first class day information. I think I was only missing 1-2 students from either class. I think my numbers absent from the first class were on the pessimistic side. I probably counted 13-14 students right at the beginning of class, so I didn’t account for the late ones. I also think a few students who didn’t show up for the first day dropped.

Two students from the 9:35 am class have come to visit me. No one from the 2:20 class yet. Students get a small number of points for this on the first assignment. Points for what you probably should do anyway, like attendance points. I figure I will see a lot more students tomorrow/next week.

I will, at minimum, go for a walk tonight. Part of me wants a run, but it is getting later, the repairperson is still here, and the later it gets the more motivation I lose.

I should go into the office and put some things away there, too. That one is more dubious than the run!

Wherein Reality Defies my Expectations

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I’ve been predicting that my 9:35 am class was going to be the easy/fun one, and the 2:20 class was going to be the difficult one.

The 9:35 am class filled up during early registration. That means, I think, that mostly honors students (with priority registration) got into the class. They should be easy, right?

The 2:20 class, on the other hand, didn’t get created until after almost everyone was registered. I figured I probably got a lot of students who had problems or bars on their registration (academic probation?) or who just put things off until the last minute.

How are we wrong? In the 9:35 am class, I had 4 absent (out of 20). I had at least another 4 who were notably late, two who I didn’t even let sign in for the day. In the second class, there were half as many tardy and absent. Guess which class is looking better now?

What went well?

  • Having students introduce each other went well.
  • I was surprisingly good with names today.
  • Talking about classes we liked/disliked, why we disliked them, and how this affected us/our behavior was productive.
  • Lots and lots of students participated.
  • I still am pleased with my little list of things to do from my last post, with one additional item added at the end:
  1. Show up on time for class.
  2. Bring a smile or a kind word for someone in our class every day.
  3. Stay in the classroom the entire class period.
  4. Participate.
  5. Use class time productively for our class work.
  6. Be professional.

What didn’t go so well?

  • I don’t feel like I did a good job of introducing the syallabus.
  • I had a brain-seizure on the class ending time in the morning class. First I was going to let them go early, then I ended up keeping them 5 minutes late.
  • I didn’t get through my outline on “What Is Mathematical Modeling” in either class; I didn’t start it at all in the second.
  • I didn’t talk up the writing center.

What do I want to make sure I do next time?

  1. I want to say, “I am happy to see you,” to my students.
  2. Go over prerequisites! Every once in a while I get someone in there who doesn’t have them; best to fix that now.
  3. Questions on the syllabus?
  4. Go over what is due soon and where to find it.
  5. Talk up the writing center.
  6. Talk up the amount of work required for this class! Scare a few off. This is not a blow-off class.
  7. Finish the outline on what is mathematical modeling.
  8. Give a LaTeX lesson so students can do my LaTeXercises and get to work on their first writing assignment.

In other unexciting just-do-it kind of news, I went for a nice walk today after getting home from work.

First Day of Class

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The first day of class is coming up tomorrow. I have high hopes and many fears about this upcoming semester. Spring 2012 was an awesome semester. Fall 2012 was a long slog.

Somethings I want to do:

  1. Every day, I want to tell my students I am glad to see them. If I am having a bad day, I want to fake it ’til I make it, because I don’t want my students joining me in a bad day.
  2. I want students to work together. Taking advantage of my resources, especially my resources in terms of the people I know, has always been a great strength of mine. And the times when I’ve fallen on my face, I haven’t been doing this.
  3. I want us all to enjoy the class. When I am enjoying it, I work harder. This is probably also true of my students.
  4. I want to set a standard of professionalism for our assignments, especially the writing assignments. Last semester the sloppiness really got me down.

To start out, I want to have students pair up with someone they don’t know and who is not in the same major as they are.

  1. Get to know each other; introductions.
    • Learn your partner’s name so you won’t forget it!
    • Find something you have in common outside of school.
    • Find out something interesting about your partner that will help you (and the rest of us) remember your partner.
    • You will introduce your partner to the class.
  2. Discuss a (math) class you really didn’t like much. What made it that way? Remember who you were in that class; how did the class affect your behavior?
  3. Discuss a (math) class you really liked. What made it that way? Remember who you were in that class; how did the class affect your behavior?

With this, I want us to start to get to know each other and how we want to behave in this class.

I want my students to

  • Show up on time for class.
  • Bring a smile or a kind word for someone in our class every single day.
  • Stay in the classroom for the entire class period.
  • Participate.
  • Use class time productively for class work.

Of course, this list applies to me too!

I want to introduce and promote the writing center.

Syllabus: no exams! Yay! But must start work early. The last minute is not your friend in this class.

I have to give an outline for the essay on what is mathematical modeling. I was just thinking — maybe I should turn this assignment into a two-person dialog rather than a normal, boring essay? I still have time to do that. Interesting thought.

New Year New You

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Several things I am working on:
1) Get back in some kind of an exercise grove. Lately, I’ve been having a whole lot of “don’t wanna.” And you know what? I don’t wanna. But I should.
2) Get to writing here and elsewhere regularly. It is good for me. Maybe a few people even read this.
3) Declutter, get rid of things, clean, simplify my life.

None things has to be fantastic, awesome, stupendous. Honestly, life would be better if they just got done. Period. Anything is better than nothing.

So. Anything is better than nothing.

I went for a walk today for about 15 minutes. Yesterday, I got out for a bike ride despite some inclement weather. Not a monster long ride (what I *think* I should be doing), but something.

I am writing right now. Maybe again soon?

I cleaned up one corner of the garage today, and threw some stuff away. We took the recycling in to the recycling center. The kitchen got scrubbed. Two loads of laundry got cleaned. A bicycle got repaired.

Tomorrow I will ride my bike to work. I will post here about my thoughts going in to a new semester. Maybe I’ll even clean or declutter something. But don’t hold your breath on me being three for three. I’ll be excited for two out of three.

Dinner Parties and RSVPs

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I plan and host a lot of dinner parties with my partner. We like to cook and have friends over. Sometimes we (usually I) just want to introduce certain people to each other. There are some people we just like being around. There are always a lot of people out there we would like to get to know better. If we have the time and energy, we invite people to come over for a casual dinner. We make something up in the crockpot, put ingredients in the bread machine, make up a big salad. And clean the house up some; an side-bonus to inviting people over.

Since we’re planning dinner, we really need to have a good ballpark on how many people to expect. Will we use the dining room table or take food into the living room? Do I need to feed 6 people or 8 or 12? Will this dish suit everyone who is coming over, after all, some friends have allergies, some are vegetarians.

In other words, we need to know who’s coming and who’s not coming. We need those RSVPs, but those seem so very very difficult to drag out of people sometime. I know folks get busy. Sometimes they forget. Sometimes they want to, but aren’t sure it will work out. And that’s all okay. Please just let me know what’s going on. And it is okay to forget on occasion; I do too.

I know that I try to reply immediately when I get invitations. What I put off, I often forget. I try especially hard to give an immediate or prompt RSVP when I am invited by an individual or family. Business invitations are another matter entirely — I feel a lot less obligation to RSVP when someone is trying to sell me something.

I wonder sometimes if the bad response rate is something I am/we are doing. I use eVite because it makes it easier to track responses and for guests to see what other guests have been invited. I don’t know if it is eVite in particular, but this seems to be an invitation to getting ignored instead of an invitation to a party — ouch. That hurts!

Would emailing people directly be a better strategy? Maybe an initial invitation email and then a follow up with the eVite? It seems to me sometimes that the only way to make sure people reply is to call everyone individually, but that’s clearly too much to do all or even most of the time.

What can I do to increase the response rate on invitations? Does anyone have any suggestions or answers?

Petrified Wood

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College Station has a lot of petrified wood. It is abundant in stream beds, at Lake Bryan, and on oilfield roads. I’ve collected hundreds of small pieces and brought them home with me.

I want to find some larger pieces, logs, to put in my garden. Unfortunately, the big pieces are harder to find, and they are very very heavy.

Petrified wood is created by a process called perimineralization. The wood falls into water or mud containing a lot of minerals. It rots slowly; usually only leaves and branches disappear. The rest of the wood is replaced by the minerals, retaining the structure of the wood, sometimes all the way down to the cellular level. You can almost always identify wood grain in petrified wood. In some pieces, you may also be able to see tree rings, bark, or even the cellular structure.

When Veteran’s Park in College Station was built, several large pieces of petrified wood were uncovered.

Wood grain or bark visible in petrified wood in Veteran's Park.

Some of my collection of petrified wood.

Sitting on a tall piece of petrified wood in Veteran's Park.

Christmas Memories

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Do you have a favorite holiday memory?

When I was little, my mother told me that when Santa visited, all my toys came to life and had a party. On Christmas morning, even the ones we took to bed with us would be all arranged in the living room, around the fireplace and Christmas tree, as if frozen the moment Santa left.

My grandmother had 8 children, and so with all the children and grandchildren, cousins, nieces, nephews, spouses, it was quite a crowd. Family holiday parties were held in a school, and of necessity were pot-luck. Grandma and others worked on making ham or ham and cheese buns for the entire group. Warmed and wrapped in tinfoil. Mom made baked beans. I probably remember the cookies best. That and running around the school halls and gymnasium with my cousins.

My grandmother made 7 layer bars (or were they 6 layer bars?), my all-time favorite Christmas cookie. I sometimes make them for myself now.

I don’t have her recipe, but the internet is the repository of all such knowledge. These would be five-layer bars, unless we count the butter or margarine added to the graham cracker crumbs as one layer. Some recipes call for the addition of butterscotch morsels, which I detest. Peanut butter morsels, on the other hand, are awesome. I use either pecans or walnuts or both. With the peanut butter chips and two types of nuts; I think that counts as 7 layers.

Security Theater

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What do you think about the TSA body scanners? I won’t go through them.

Thank you, I’ll take the invasive pat-down. That, at least, makes it clear to everyone that my privacy is being invaded.

I am polite and cooperative with the TSA agents, but inside I fume; this is ridiculous. We spent $8.1 billion on TSA in 2011. What has it accomplished aside from long lines and invasion of privacy?

There’s a difference between security and security theater. Reinforcing the doors between cockpit and cabin: that was security. Making everyone go through a body scanner, that is security theater. It is easy to bypass the body scanner. It is hard to get through the locked cockpit to cabin door.

Most people go through the scanners without a second thought. Even I haven’t done much to protest aside from my insistence on the alternative pat-down. Will writing to our representatives in Congress and the Senate and our president help? I fear TSA has too much momentum behind it.

The money spent on TSA could be spent in many better ways. To help the poor and unemployed. To fix and replace aging infrastructure. To promote alternative forms of transportation that would lessen our dependence on fossil fuels and drive funds away from sources that fund terrorists.

For more information, take a look at Smoke Screening and Loaded Gun Slips Past TSA Screeners.