The students' last finals were on Wednesday 6/4/08. We had to come in on Thursday to check out, and our graduation was held in the early afternoon. I went in on Friday to finally clean up the rest of the clutter in my classroom. And now ... I'm at home completely done. Whew. As usual, it sneaks up on you and is over before you know it. (unless you're still in school, and then it NEVER seems to be over)
I had a bit of drama (still ongoing) with a parent EXTREMELY upset because of my grading policy for the last 6 weeks. Ultimately her child got an 87% for the semester, but that's not acceptable to her, and I've ruined her child's life, and she'll be speaking to my administrator to make sure I don't have this opportunity EVER again to do this to another student. Deep breaths. I've talked with various other teachers and friends and have calmed down a bit, but obviously I'm still bitter.
In brighter news: I've started "playing" the guitar (and by playing, I mean random strumming and posing and trying to look cool while screechy sounds eminate from the instrument as my tongue sticks out of my mouth to aid in better concentration) and am self-teaching myself (that sounds redundant) via books and cds and dvds. It is so fun.
I'm also planning on making a simple big-square quilt for our guest room this week, so that when my friend visits, I won't have to subject her to the 80's style black-neon-pink-&-green-&-purple syntheticy cover.
Calculus project news. I liked how my volumes of revolution foam projects turned out. BUT. I have an idea I want to play around with for a teaching tool for next year. I'm thinking of getting card stock or laminated color paper and cutting the same shape out many times. Then I'll either cut a hole in each one or a slit in order to string all these shapes onto a circular thin wire or stiff cardstock that is curved into a circle. Then I can "fan out" the shapes or clump them together, and the students can get a better visualization of a "volume of revolution". I'll have to experiment this summer.
I always thought these would work well for explaining solids of revolution. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. I bought some this year (and had to endure the sales floor person's derisive, "those are not in style anymore"). I showed them to the kids this year, and ... I only used it once. Maybe I should have kept bringing it back for each day we spent on the topic. Maybe I should have passed them around, so the kids got a sense of things.
ReplyDeleteHave you used them?
Ms. Cookie
I have not taught calculus, so no I haven't used them. I've just always wondered how/if it would help the students. So many have problems with the visualization of the revolutions (from experiences with classmates and tutoring calc students).
ReplyDeleteI wonder how hard they would be to make? Have students make a set given a curve. One showing revolution about the x-axis, one about the y-axis.