Every once in a while I learn about something that simplifies my work. It may be something that is fairly common knowledge…but maybe not since I was not aware of the technique. The technique I am referring to comes in handy when copying your MyMathLab homework and quizzes to another semester.
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More On Using Google Calendar for a Class Schedule
The past two weeks has been consumed with prepping classes for the fall semester. With the amount of content I have at http://www.whyseemath.com, I do less content preparation and more planning. My primary task is to set up the calendar for the entire semester in each of the three classes I teach, College Algebra, Finite Mathematics, and Survey of Calculus. Last semester I tried using Google Calendar to organize my personal work schedule as well as the calendars for THe each of these classes. It worked great for me and now I am starting to delve into best practices…how can I improve what I am doing?
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Link to WhySeeMath.com RSS Feed
Occasionally visitors to this site ask me about the websites I use for the classes I teach. This website is my faculty oriented website. My students use whyseemath.com to access videos, worksheets, and other resources for college algebra, finite math, and calculus. In fact, the site is embedded in the entry page they see when they log into their course at MyLabsPlus.
The front end is designed for messages oriented to all of my students. I typically like to post interesting applications of mathematics that would be of interest to my students. Along the right side of the page are RSS feeds from the blogs for each class.
By clicking on the link along the top of the page, you can access the blogs for individual classes as well as a resource page for constructing research posters. Each individual class blog has a feed from the main Why?See!Math page so that they can see updates.
Along the right side of this page, I have added an RSS feed from the main Why?See!Math page so that visitors here can see the posts I am making. You will always find some interesting links and articles…I follow a number of websites and I often put up links to Wired or NPR when I find something that relates to one of my classes.
ICTCM 2013 Presentation
Today I gave my presentation on “Assessing Student Projects Using Virtual Poster Sessions”. In this presentation, I demonstrated how you can use posters to assess student learning on projects in Business Calculus. The beauty of this technique is that it does not require any special technology to do. Most of your students have access to the tools they need to create the posters like Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. And you probably use a learning management system and a tool that you can use to create PDF files. That and a little organization can get you on your way to using projects and research posters in your class.
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Alternate Technology Assignment for Medical Insurance Project
I get more interest in the medical insurance projects than any other project on this website. I use two different versions of the project in my classes. In College Algebra, I use the Medical Insurance 2 Project. I have student compare two different plans to decide which is cheaper. In Business Calculus, I use the Medical Insurance 3 Project where students model an insurance plan and prove it is continuous. These project share a number of technology assignments. The second one that students complete is Technology Assignment: Calculate the Total Annual Cost (DOC | PDF). For my students, this is usually the hardest assignment of the semester. It is a collision between insurance terminology (which they have no clue about) and Excel (which they also have no clue about). To find a model more efficiently, I needed to tone down the Excel component and ramp up the insurance component. Continue reading “Alternate Technology Assignment for Medical Insurance Project”