Three cheers for free coffee in the science center!

Three cheers for free coffee in the science center!

I am currently fully energized to write this blog. Does this mean it will be a coherent blog? Probably not, as my brain plus coffee usually leads to A.D.D. As in, I'm currently thinking about a million things all at once. Yay. Get excited. Let's hope I can keep the tangents to a minimum.

#1 Thought: I've come to realize that I love simplistic explanations and definitions. This realization first occurred in my Multi variable Calculus class, and appeared again in class today. In introducing something new to a class, I wish all teachers started with a simplistic explanation rather than diving into a bunch of dense information. For example:

-A gerund is an "ing" verb that is being used as a noun.
-A phrase is a word or collection of words that function as part of a sentence, but the phrase does not have both a subject and predicate.
-The gradient of a function of three variables is a vector composed of the partial derivatives in respect to each variable.
-A clause is a combination of a subject and a predicate.

After these definitions, it'd be appropriate to explain the general use of these things with examples, then move on to bigger and more complex situations. I'm not trying to say Mike/Gordon did not give complete explanations of the grammatical terms, but I think simplistic definitions should be stressed more when teaching. I've sat through entire lectures where at the end of the class, I could not explain the topic in simple terms.

For example, Dr. Higgins's lecture on gradients in Multi variable Calc. Let me start by saying that Higgins is obviously a very intelligent man and I really respect him, but sometimes it feels like he doesn't know how to put things in simple terms. It's like he forgets that we don't already understand the subject. In our lecture introducing gradients, he gave a long definition in mathematical terms and proceeded to give examples of how to find the gradient. At the end of the class, I found myself asking "what exactly is the gradient? What is is it used for?" This was very frustrating, seeing as I had three pages of notes, but didn't exactly know what was going on.

Sometimes I feel like lessons in grammar have a similar ending. Earlier this year, when we first took brief notes on the difference of a phrase and a clause, I had in my notes the a clause contained a subject and a predicate. I did not, however, have a clear explanation of what was in a phrase. All I knew was that it wasn't a clause. It wasn't until today that I was able to go back to those notes and fill in the blanks with the definition I have in the list above.

I hope to remember these frustrations when I become a math teacher. It's so easy to forget that students are not on the same page. I'll start every class with a straight forward explanation of what the formula or subject is, why we have it, and what it is used for. I'll end every class with the same simple explanation.

#2 Thought: Everyone needs to watch Waiting for Superman. We watched part of it in education class today and it made me want to cry. Shitty teachers should lose their jobs. Pardon my French. Screw unions and tenure.

#3 Thought: I declared my math major yesterday! Yay! Wish me luck.

#4 Thought: I've been looking at the open course description thing for next semester, and I might end up with no Tuesday/Thursday classes the first half of the semester. My schedule is super awk (lol awk), and its making me nervous. Three of the classes I have no choice but to take for my major and minor are back to back MWF at 9:10, 10:20, and 11:30, and then all of the classes I want to take as gen eds are also MWF.
Great~.

^ is that how the ~ works?? If so, it may replace the semicolon as my favorite punctuation!

#5 Thought: If I don't have any classes T/Thurs, hopefully I can get some early Writing Center hours on those days so I don't have the option of sleeping all day!

Cool beans.
Sarah


PS. I just used the spell check and realized I've been spelling "explanation" wrong my whole life. Explaination.... whoops.