The totally off-topic thread

[whatmeworry]

I did notice no emails for AB bankruptcy thread.

First 40c day up north, so dear children of summer, winter will soon end

 

[Quickstatus]

It's ok Jay, there is another building more expensive than your new honeypot hospital

Apple Park

 

[anat0l]

100 minutes of year 11 mathematics this morning. 19 students.

Sum coughulative total energy expended during lesson by students... wouldn't even power a light bulb.

Yep... it's the end of the term indeed.

 

[Quickstatus]

100 minutes of year 11 mathematics this morning. 19 students.

Sum coughulative total energy expended during lesson by students... wouldn't even power a light bulb.

Yep... it's the end of the term indeed.

What level maths?

 

[amaroo]

It's ok Jay, there is another building more expensive than your new honeypot hospital

Apple Park

LOL, IIRC the new Sunny Coast came in at only $1.8B, and on time.

 

[anat0l]

What level maths?

Maths B; they are learning calculus at the moment.

 

[cove]

It was a glorious sunny day in Perth today.It feels like Spring at last.

 

[Quickstatus]

Maths B; they are learning calculus at the moment.

Calculus is such an enlightening subject and a very elegant and powerful tool to visualise and understand the natural world.

Unfortunately maths education seems to be only about robotically doing differentiation and integration for no other reason than it's in the syllabus. Most students see calculus is just another maths subject but they don't see the big picture.

 

[Quickstatus]

It was a glorious sunny day in Perth today.It feels like Spring at last.

We have skipped spring and gone to directly to summer

......

Just on calculus. It took me till the latter years in university to get a Eureka moment to see that Calculus is really a very elegant way to express how big things are made up of little thing. That's why a right angle triangle can be folded on itself to make a circle and the area of a circle is the really the same as the area of a triangle.

 

[anat0l]

Calculus is such an enlightening subject and a very elegant and powerful tool to visualise and understand the natural world.

Unfortunately maths education seems to be only about robotically doing differentiation and integration for no other reason than it's in the syllabus. Most students see calculus is just another maths subject.

I like your spin on it. Can you elaborate on your ideas? I wish I could make it more interesting for my students.

We had to go through about a month of "mechanical" learning of differentiation just to get them over the rules. Walk before running and what not.

When we got to the problem solving stuff, they'd forgotten mostly about the techniques, or they were learning how to do the problem by copying / referring to a previous problem of the same style.

Of course, one could argue we could dispense with all the techniques of differentiation / integration and just focus on its applications in the real world, using something like WolframAlpha to do all the mechanical calculus for us.

 

[Quickstatus]

I like your spin on it. Can you elaborate on your ideas? I wish I could make it more interesting for my students.

We had to go through about a month of "mechanical" learning of differentiation just to get them over the rules. Walk before running and what not.

When we got to the problem solving stuff, they'd forgotten mostly about the techniques, or they were learning how to do the problem by copying / referring to a previous problem of the same style.

Of course, one could argue we could dispense with all the techniques of differentiation / integration and just focus on its applications in the real world, using something like WolframAlpha to do all the mechanical calculus for us.

I'm not an educator so really don't have much to contribute in that sense but I remember that calculus was boring and just an excercise in mundane concepts. It was not until later that I started to appreciate what it was all about.

Essentially I discovered Maths after leaving school.

Re Circle and triangle.
Take any circle and draw further circles inside the outside circle - say 20 circles in total. The inside circle is a dot with a length of zero.
Cut circles along the radius and plot the lengths of the circles as vertical lines from left to right increasing from dot to the outer circle. What you get is a triangle. Interesting then that the formula for triangle area is so similar to circle area.

Calculus allows visualisation of the circle area as infinitely series of smaller and smaller circles.

Sure you can say let's integrate the equation for circumference but the attention span of students most likely will shorten dramatically.

 

[JohnK]

Not quite Summer yet. Still quite cool in the evenings like now.

 

[Flashback]

A lot of flying the past few days, including an unneeded (in my opinion) day trip back down to London from Edinburgh (I'm LON based). Flight now delayed.... long days, lots of work, too many flights, feeling grumpy!

It doesn't help that the F lounge at LGW closes at 8pm either.

Happy Wednesday people!

 

[VPS]

Just at a hotel near Gatwick waiting to fly to Spain tomorrow - 13 here - 35 in Seville - surely there must be someway we could average it out - but I'm at a nice hotel and I had a great night at the pub next door

 

[Flashback]

Just at a hotel near Gatwick waiting to fly to Spain tomorrow - 13 here - 35 in Seville - surely there must be someway we could average it out - but I'm at a nice hotel and I had a great night at the pub next door

I'm still sitting on the runway waiting to take off.... I shall wave!

 

[VPS]

don't make too much noise as you go over then - I'm QF WP - what's the best lounge for a BA J flight tomorrow

 

[Denali]

....Essentially I discovered Maths after leaving school......

For me, it didnt make automatic sense until I was older. Trig is now like, Of course! It makes perfect sense NOW.

But current basic school math is doing my head it - they keep changing the rules so homework is a minefield these days.

 

[blackcat20]

Meanwhile Melbourne seems to be stuck in winter.... I got my first cold of the season and I have to be at work today because I'm apparently the only person who can set up for the student information night.

 

[JohnK]

R U OK day today!

 

[Pushka]

Meanwhile Melbourne seems to be stuck in winter.... I got my first cold of the season and I have to be at work today because I'm apparently the only person who can set up for the student information night.

Ah. Adelaide is sending more to you tomorrow. Wet and cold here.