You can ALWAYS interrupt for that kind of gawjus!

Steph, like Barb said, you guys are 'gawjus'!

I got really pissed off when my daughter's sixth grade math class insisted on everyone having a calculator for class. BS. If a student doesn't know how to do the math without using a calculator you're not doing them any favors.

I think that calculators, when used properly, can be a great teaching tool. There are lots of things that can take forever to do without a calculator, and the point gets lost in the details, while it can be made really clear if you do it with a calculator. Most of the examples I can think of are for middle school and higher math, but that's mostly because that's the level that I've taught most.

I especially like graphing calculators for being able to play with functions. They make it so much easier to do things like show the relationship between the roots of an equation and the zeros of a graph, or how the graph of a function and the graph of its derivative relate.

OK, a quick google found me an example of what looks like a pretty good calculator lesson for younger kids: show them how if you press, say, 1+2=, you'll get 3, and then if you keep pressing =, it'll keep adding 2 to each subsequent answer. Give them a few different examples to try, and let them try some of their own. They can observe a bunch of different patterns: if you start with an odd number and keep adding an even one, the answer will keep being odd, but if you start with an even number, the answer will keep being even; if you keep adding an odd number, the answer will alternate between odd and even; if you start with a 1-digit number and keep adding 10, then every answer will have that same 1-digit number as the last digit; etc. It seems like a good intro to thinking about the ideas of multiplication before they start learning all the multiplication tables.

Lovely picture of the happy couple!

I don't know on the calculator stuff. I think it may have helped me, but we didn't have them in school because I is old. I'll defer to the mathy experts.

Teppy and the Boy are completely gorgeous!

DH doesn't like graphing calculators. He doesn't think people should be able to use them until they have the basics down.

Funny that he can tell you the make and model of all three of his current calculators.

Hey, all. Let's see if this posts. My net access is being all coy; it thinks it's cute, but it's not.

Went to Ebil School o' Doom today and all was cool. No one even raised an eye at my quitting. Good luck to 'em, I say, and I truly mean that.

I Have revamped my teaching resume into a more general resume, and written two letters, one for a domestic violence advocate position, and one for a sexual abuse educator position. I think I'd like the sex abuse position the best (and god, doesn't THAT sound wrong?). But I'd go to schools and organizations and do education on sexual abuse and violence. I'd also have to do some hospital outreach, which is depressing as hell, but it's useful work.

I like being helpful. I won't mind an office job, but I'd like something that makes me feel I am making a diff. I've worked in 2 DV shelters and the pay is shite. But at neither place do I have to do lesson plans for 8 hours for people who won't let me teach them. Wish me 'ma.

I am also contemplating going back to get my doctorate. I dunno if I qualify for more loans, tho. Shall cogitate and investigate.

No nightmares, no migraines, no panic attacks, no suicidal ideations and a general sense of being happy and excited when I wake up. MUCH the hell better. Right choice.

Love, Me

Much the hell better, indeed. It is so good that you are out of the soul sucking school.

DH doesn't like graphing calculators. He doesn't think people should be able to use them until they have the basics down.

But what counts as "the basics"? And there are plenty of things that using a graphing calculator will help you learn. (You can see things like slope and intercepts and intersections much better on a graphing calculator graph. Graph y=x and y=2x and y=1/2 x on the same axis, and you can immediately see what changing the coefficient does to the slope. Try the same thing with graph paper, and by the time you finish drawing the graph (with lots of smudges and erasures and a few mistakes, because if you're learning about slope, you're probably about 12 and not necessarily very good at drawing things accurately), you've probably forgotten what the point was to begin with.)

Also, graphing calculators are great for teaching proper use of parentheses, which is really important for keeping track of things in long calculations on paper.

Hugs and job ~ma for you, Erin.

I am also contemplating going back to get my doctorate.

I'm on this path as well. Starting to investigate what could be an amazing dissertation topic that would be a look at theatre and race issues in a specific little known of roadside attraction that was near here in the 1940's.

No nightmares, no migraines, no panic attacks, no suicidal ideations and a general sense of being happy and excited when I wake up. MUCH the hell better. Right choice.

So happy to hear this.

Oh, the calculus course that I'm TAing this semester is using WebAssign for certain homework assignments. It's a web-based system that lets the students see the homework problems on the screen, enter their answers, and immediately be told whether they're right or wrong, with a few chances to try again for the right answer. And it records all their scores so that they can be averaged into their final grade. (There are some problems that won't work with just entering an answer, so there are some written assignments, too, but a lot less grading than usual.)

I'm kind of iffy on this system. I can see both good and bad sides of it. Also, the design is horrible -- nothing is where you'd expect it to be.

But anyway. It costs something like $15 per semester for each student to use it. That's supposed to be included in the textbook price -- the textbook comes with a card with an access code. Judging by the number of "I can't find my access code" emails I've gotten today, I think the bookstore ordered the edition without the access code card.