The FINAL AP Calculus lesson: Sigma <--> Integral notation
Once we reach the end of the year in AP Calculus BC and ALL content has been covered, I circle back to the beginning of Unit 6 and spend one class period focusing more on how to convert from sigma notation to integral notation. This is a great review of proper notation, limits, and Riemann sums. In this post, I share the resources that I use to help students master the technical notation.
One Year Blog Anniversary :)
Reflections on ONE YEAR of my blog: my own little corner of the internet!
A Polar Prom
Commentary on our seniors’ final weeks, including information on our school’s prom and discussion on how I introduced and taught polar functions in AP Calculus BC.
Listening to podcasts to keep myself grading…
Grading is a huge part of the teaching process, and I do a LOT of it. But…sometimes grading is just awful. I just realized something I can do to help myself!
More Radicals - Dealing with Extraneous Solutions
In this post, I discuss how I introduce extraneous solutions and how I have students explore them more with graphing calculators (although Desmos could be used as well). Resources are included.
Find Your Radical Error
A couple weeks ago, I gave my students a worksheet on things related to radicals. As I went through the sheets, I noticed a LOT of common errors; errors that I knew they shouldn’t be making. It could have been due to carelessness or rushing in some cases, but either way I wanted an effective way to address the errors. I decided to create a “Fix the Error” worksheet based directly on the errors I saw. Here is the original problem set and the “Find Your Error” worksheet, which worked out really well in class!
Using Newspaper Articles in Math Class
Reading the newspaper I something I enjoy doing after work when my kids are asleep or otherwise preoccupied. There are many excellent news articles to share with high school students to help them find the value in staying up-to-date with current events and relevant topics that are affecting their lives or will soon affect them after high school. My favorite, of course, are related to mathematics! Here are my of my favorite recent articles from the WSJ and my thoughts on incorporating them in the math classroom.
Polynomial Application Problems
Here are two of my favorite sets of Polynomial problems to be done at Vertical Whiteboards (VNPS). Each sets takes about two class periods.
How I ran March Math Madness
This is the first year I ran March Math Madness in my classes. Here is how I organized it, how I created my brackets, the problems sets I used, and the prizes I created.
Pi Day and Pie Day
Here’s how me and my students celebrated Pi day this year! Bingo, Pie, Math Team end-of-season party, and more.
AP Calculus Mock Exam time
In five week, students begin taking their AP exams! One of my favorite things our school does to get students ready is a full mock exam, which is a previously released practice exam from CollegeBoard. Here’s how it works at my school.
Trying Bingo + Open Middle for the win
Open Middle is a great website to find engaging, open-ended, critical thinking tasks for students, especially those who finish work early. Tomorrow I am trying out Bingo for the in my class FIRST time ever! Here’s my Bingo sheet.
Classroom Screen and Lo-Fi tunes
Today I incorporated two new-to-me things into my classroom: Lo-Fi music and Classroom Screen. I love them both!
Some u-sub stuff I love
I share some of my favorite activities and problem sets that I use with my students to help them master this important method of integration. YOU can do U-sub!
Future Desmos Fellows here!
This is a huge honor and big moment in my career as a teacher. I am truly so pumped to travel out West to attend this PD to become part of the Desmos Fellows program!
Building Cross-Sectional Volumes
My favorite way to help Calculus students visualize cross-sectional volumes is with PIPE CLEANERS!
How I Introduce Volumes of Revolution
In this post, I describe what the critical first day of volumes looks like in my classroom and how I use various techniques to help my student conceptually understand how to use calculus to find those volumes.
Happy Mathentine’s Day!
Normally for Valentine’s Day, I mark the occasion by posting a couple fun Valentine’s day and math related links for students to explore, but this year I found some cute and fun math Valentine’s Day cards (“Mathentines”) online and decided to use them as well.
Super Bowl Prediction Contest
I share a fun and easy-to-use prediction sheet to use with students to increase their interest in the game.
Officially Accepted as an AP Calculus Reader!
I am excited to say that this year I have been selected to be an AP Calculus reader and helps score the exams this summer. I never thought I’d be excited to grade, but this feels different thank you typical grading, and it will be excellent professional development.