Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Spring Break

WooHoo! Nine days off to relax and catch up and stuff. I went to Portland, OR for a few days just to wander around, and the rain gods must have been busy elsewhere because it only rained on the night I came in and on the night I left. Note to self: red-eye flights bad, but made better due to the fact that I had a whole glorious row all to myself to "stretch" out in for 4 hours of interrupted sleep.

As I was wandering around and needing a caffeine fix, I started looking for either the *green* popular coffee shop circle/emblem or the *red* one. Then I got to thinking how that's so ingrained in our brains, and we now have instant recognition of logos and various signs even if they're too far away to read, we've memorized them. Then that got me to thinking about various things I want/need my calculus students to know: derivatives/integrals related to e^x, ln(x), trig functions, etc.

My thought before spring break was to have various posters around the room with "need to know" things on them. Maybe in different colors or styles, and just the fact that the kids have to stare at them every day may help them when the AP exam comes around, and they can close their eyes (maybe) and "see" what they need to know. Then I thought I'd force the issue and periodically (daily?) have us recite the posters. Then after my trip, I thought maybe we can design some sort of logos for these things. Anything to make facts stick in their heads when they have SO much to memorize.

Must think about this some more.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous8:59 PM

    I'd love to hear/see what you come up with. I'm in the midst of thinking about what the best way to review everything soon is.

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