I had to go to a teaching seminar today which actually ended up a lot more interesting than I'd thought it would. And it's gotten me thinking, and I've realized that pretty much everything I've read and accept about the process of education is completely at odds with the way I teach my classes. But I can't really figure out a way to get around that within the confines of the "These students must learn this material this week, and must know all this stuff by the end of the semester" structure of the calculus classes.
Really, the way that college calculus courses are structured is just bad. I think my proposal would be to have the physics department and the business school have their own courses to teach the sorts of calculus stuff that their students need, and have calculus courses in the math department that are designed more along the lines of how mathematics actually works. I really can't think of any other university department where so many other departments require their courses as prerequisites, and it makes it impossible to figure out what should be going on in the class.
Or, in other words, I am SICK of teaching the product rule and quotient rule and chain rule to people who will just memorize them long enough to pass the test and then forget them immediately. It's pointless to put this much effort into it.
This semester, I told my students, "If you come out of this class knowing exactly one fact, that fact will be, 'The derivative is the rate of change.'" I told them that they ought to come out of the class knowing more than one thing, but if they don't, that's the one thing I insist on.
Gah. My tiny world is rapidly collapsing. I still have the flaming head, which is under much pressure, and I think is turning into a migraine. I can't find my knee brace, because I've put it somewhere idiotic since I haven't needed it in at least a year. Attempting to find it has reminded me what a stinking hellhole my apartment is right now, and how I have no idea how I can get it presentable for house guests a week from tonight. Combine it all and I want to cry, and on top of that there are new adventures with the Winchesters right over there! and I can't concentrate enough to watch them.
And, if you can believe it, my diamond shoes are too tight.
::passes Ailleann pain meds, Fernet, and pictures of pretty boys::
Feel better, sweetie. And don't worry about next week *now*. Worry about it ... on Wednesday.
This is a plan I can get behind!
My life has just been a wreck recently, and I'm getting really powerless about it. I could, of course, get off my ass and do something about it, but that just seems silly.
At least it does when my head's going to explode.
Exploding heads make everything else nigh on impossible. {{Ailleann}}
That sounds frustrating, Hil, but your one thing is a good thing for them to get, for what that's worth.
OMG, those eyes! Look at how big and blue they are. She's absolutely gorgeous!
(Erm, you haven't cut her hair again, have you?)
NO! I haven't TOUCHED it since January.
Heh. It looks shorter than the last pictures I saw of her. It's a good thing she pulls off "gamine" quite well.
You do know she's going to one day comprehend what you did, and then never let you forget about it? My sister STILL won't let go of how I mangled her hair, and it's twenty years later.
If she's my child, she'll have "Here lies Aimee. Beloved wife and not so beloved mother. I'll show you pictures of what she did to my hair." engraved on my tombstone.
Her hair is up in a pony tail and the bangs are askew from some serious dress-up play.
This is what it was in January - [link]
