A view through the walls of our classroom. This is an interactive learning ecology for students and parents in my AP Calculus class. This ongoing dialogue is as rich as YOU make it. Visit often and post your comments freely.
Anyway, guys, I also ran across some great stuff you may be interested in. MIT has an online site called OCW (Online Course Work), which uses Youtube to hold videos of course lectures. Im sure we could all use these for studies and to get a feel for University style study.
The main page is http://ocw.mit.edu, with the mathematics section being here:
They keep links to pages with the videos, and they're even avaliable to download so you can peruse them in your free offline time, or on your iPod! (neat)
Here's one page that has video links to stuff we've already learned. Good for brushing up.
I havent gone through much of it, but this site also seems to cover coursework and lectures for more advanced calculus, in case anybody is interested in seeing what we're doing next.
Also, NOT just Calc stuff there, MANY subjects covered. I personally will be looking into the computer science stuff they have, neat stuff.
Okay, sure I know what a dork I am that I've sat through that movie. More than once, which is sad. I'd pay to go see the DARK INTEGRAL though. What? No subliminal messaging going on here.
As soon as everyone was "ready-eddy" for class in our seats, we started fussing about our assignments. We handed in our assignment that was given to us over "the break". Well exam week and hopefully that will boost up our marks.
Speaking of marks, Mr. K explained how the marking system works in this particular class. I was lost and confused at some points, but I got the main idea.
Annually, Mr. K gets a statistics report in August or so based on the results of the AP exams. Stats are gathered from every category such as types or questions on the exam (multiple choice, long answer) and even statistics on what people got on each question. He showed us an example of some statistics from a few years back. The...uh...what's the word. I'll just say provincial. The "provincial" average grades after the exam were at approx. 22%, yet the global average was 14%. Now yes, those grades suck the salt out of peanuts, but it's good that the provincial average is larger than the global average, especially when teachers "curve the grades".
Since averages are taken, the class' grades shift as a group and maintains that shape which is usually a curve and I think this is NORMATIVE REFERENCE. If not, feel free to correct me.
Then we were also introduced to the idea of STANDARD DEVIATION. This measures variation in a way a group performs. In other words, it indicates how spread out data is, similar to finding the range, which involves only utilizing both the highest value and the lowest value on the curve. The only difference with standard deviation is that it not only uses the first and last values, but it also uses the values in between.
Then Mr. K clarified that 20% of our final mark is based on how we do with our DEV project and 30% is for the take home exam in which we are expected to do 100% in considering the resources available to us. That takes care of 50%. But I'm not saying you don't have to worry. As it was said earlier today, this isn't a free ride.
Thanks to this standard deviation, our class will have a FIXED average, based on our gr. 12 pre-cal class and marks will substantially either increase or decrease. It all depends on us both individually and as a group. Of course, in the end, it will all depend on the class as a group, but individually we each have to decide whether or not we have that drive, that determination to work hard. Whoever works their little bums off, will most likely "beat half the class" and whomever else decides to slack off and not give a flying booger will be in the bottom half, suffering as you are basically "handing your grades over" to someone else. If someone gets weaker others get stronger. This is where it might get ugly. The force cannot be with us all. It's not exactly supposed to be a competition, but then again that's how it will end up.
All I'm going to say now is that you are all in control of your destiny and may the force be with you.
Afterwards, with a bit of time leftover, we peeked at our marks and then went over parts of the worksheet that was our homework. It really annoys me that I only got half the question right. haha. The class then started to watch the videos that were uploaded. There is no official seed video yet, but it will probably be made for or before Friday. So if anyone wishes to edit their videos, or upload them, be sure to get it done in time for the new seed video.
If you want to watch the uploaded ones again, I might as well embed them here.
INTEGRALS FOR CALC. {Ben & Zeph}
I only have one word to say. Triangle xD.
CLAY FRIENDS {Kristina, Joyce, Jamie}
It's been hours and this tune is still inside my head. It's disturbing that something can be this peaceful.
THE DARK INTEGRAL {Justus, Lawrence, Francis}
Great parody. Impressive as always. BTW what is Justus drinking at the beginning haha.
TEAM PSY INTEGRALS VID... probably still uploading ... please insert HERE? {Paul, Shelly, Yinan}
It looks amazing even though I haven't seen it yet. xD
I'm a bit relieved getting a more thorough understanding of this mark business...but still, I can always do better. I'm still confused. I think I can be a good person. It's still a mystery to me why calculus doesn't like me. haha JOKES. Apparently not a good one.
Wow. My scribe posts are getting a bit monotone. Lame jokes too. I guess it shows how much I miss English class. I really do. I'll end it before it gets anymore unbearable. The next scribe for tomorrow is....Not Paul. Then again, when is it ever Paul? Oh goodness me. I really should stop.
PS. Before I stop typing, I'll just say that I don't know what to tag this post in terms of units, since we didn't really spend the period that way. Perhaps fix the tag? But until then, without a third tag, it feels ...not special.
So, Mr.K, like the derivative commercials, we had our commercials as a reply to your introductory derivative commercial (the one where you said "I challenge you" etc.). Are you going to make one up for the integrals too? Because we're just doing the finishing touches to ours and we're not sure on how you want us to "submit" it.
Don't forget, you guys, Mr. Beaumont is interested in seeing our projects! =)
I should have posted this earlier. Francis' post reminded me. (BTW Francis, you're scribe for Monday's class. ;-) ) Here are the four videos that the class generated (the 30 second time limit did not include credits) followed by a brief podcast reflection we did on the last day of classes before the winter break. Give it a listen, this project isn't over yet ...
One of the things we learned was that 30 seconds is too short. The next round of videos will have a 60 second time limit. They'll all be published by the end of January. We'll settle on the final due date in class on Monday. ;-)
Copyright As part of this assignment we talked about copyright and I emphasized that using copyrighted material (music) is considered stealing unless you have permission to use the content. Generally, I believe that using 30 seconds or less of copyrighted music falls under Canadian Fair Dealing guidelines. As part of this discussion I pointed you all to Jamendo where you could find free music to use without worrying about any copyright infringements.
I'm really proud of the way you all dealt with copyright issues and how you credited all the sources you used both in the videos and in the informational text that accompanies your work.
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