Unless you've read articles like this one, you probably aren't even aware that the study of prime numbers is "a thing." It is, however, and this news of a discovery about the size of "prime gaps," or the distance between consecutive prime numbers, could end up being a big deal. As the article mentions, it could have implications to encryption programs like those used for cyber security, for example.
Still, it can be a hard concept to wrap your head around - that prime numbers are even all that significant to begin with! After all, a number's just a number, right? Who cares if it can be divided evenly by smaller numbers or not? Well, it turns out to be pretty important, and luckily the number geeks are all over it.
Showing posts with label Math Tutoring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Math Tutoring. Show all posts
Monday, December 22, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
The Sum Of All Positive Integers? That's Easy: It's - 1/12
I'll admit I was skeptical about this when I first heard about it, but it turns out to actually be true:
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + ... (to infinity) = - 1/12
While it's a completely counter-intuitive result - how can adding a set of strictly positive values possibly end up in a negative sum? - a relatively simple proof of it shows that it's true. I'm even more impressed by the fact, referred to in the linked video, that quantum physics appears to point in this same direction. I love stuff like this!
I have to say this reminds me of an unrelated phenomenon in computer science: because of the way numeric values are stored, a positive value that's constantly increased by 1 will (barring intervention by the operating system to prevent it) eventually go from a very high positive value to a very small negative value because of the high order bit eventually flipping from positive to negative (from 0 to 1). Who knew that was reflecting, in a bizarre way, a functionality of the real world where infinite values are concerned?
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + ... (to infinity) = - 1/12
While it's a completely counter-intuitive result - how can adding a set of strictly positive values possibly end up in a negative sum? - a relatively simple proof of it shows that it's true. I'm even more impressed by the fact, referred to in the linked video, that quantum physics appears to point in this same direction. I love stuff like this!
I have to say this reminds me of an unrelated phenomenon in computer science: because of the way numeric values are stored, a positive value that's constantly increased by 1 will (barring intervention by the operating system to prevent it) eventually go from a very high positive value to a very small negative value because of the high order bit eventually flipping from positive to negative (from 0 to 1). Who knew that was reflecting, in a bizarre way, a functionality of the real world where infinite values are concerned?
Monday, June 03, 2013
On Learning How To Learn
One of the folks I follow on Twitter just posted a link to a great article by scientist Carl Zimmer. It's on the topic of students e-mailing Mr. Zimmer questions relating to his field of expertise, obviously trying to get him to do their homework assignments for them. He shares a few of the e-mails he's received, and several things stood out as I was reading the article:
1. The Internet really can encourage laziness. Strangely, I've found that it's had the opposite effect on me, as my natural tendency is to be lazy and not look anything up, but when it's just a few keystrokes away, I can't justify that attitude any more, and so I do more research than I ever used to. But for the average high school student, not the least bit interested in the topic he or she is studying in school, the Internet holds out at least the possibility of learning absolutely nothing while still achieving a grade that would seem to suggest that some smartification did occur.
2. People (not just kids) continue to struggle with remembering how they began a sentence by the time they're writing the end of it. Or, to put it in modern terminology, like they do. (Ha.) So, for example, you get the kid who writes, "I am doing a research paper on evolution and how evolution and the Galapagos and evolution are related." Had this teenage really tuned out between typing "how evolution and the Galapagos" and then "and evolution are related?" Is the attention span really that short nowadays? It seems like it might be. And speaking of that...
3. Wow, did this part ever resonate with me: "Once you find an article on, say, carnivorous plants, you need to read it deeply. Let the ideas sink in. The first time through, you may not appreciate how all the pieces of the story fit together into a whole. Read it again. Resist the urge to click away to Facebook after every sentence." I've witnessed the context switching to Facebook every thirty seconds phenomenon first hand over the past little while, and it's scary to consider where that sort of thing is going to lead us, as a species.
Anyway, it's a great read, especially for anyone who's a parent or teacher.
1. The Internet really can encourage laziness. Strangely, I've found that it's had the opposite effect on me, as my natural tendency is to be lazy and not look anything up, but when it's just a few keystrokes away, I can't justify that attitude any more, and so I do more research than I ever used to. But for the average high school student, not the least bit interested in the topic he or she is studying in school, the Internet holds out at least the possibility of learning absolutely nothing while still achieving a grade that would seem to suggest that some smartification did occur.
2. People (not just kids) continue to struggle with remembering how they began a sentence by the time they're writing the end of it. Or, to put it in modern terminology, like they do. (Ha.) So, for example, you get the kid who writes, "I am doing a research paper on evolution and how evolution and the Galapagos and evolution are related." Had this teenage really tuned out between typing "how evolution and the Galapagos" and then "and evolution are related?" Is the attention span really that short nowadays? It seems like it might be. And speaking of that...
3. Wow, did this part ever resonate with me: "Once you find an article on, say, carnivorous plants, you need to read it deeply. Let the ideas sink in. The first time through, you may not appreciate how all the pieces of the story fit together into a whole. Read it again. Resist the urge to click away to Facebook after every sentence." I've witnessed the context switching to Facebook every thirty seconds phenomenon first hand over the past little while, and it's scary to consider where that sort of thing is going to lead us, as a species.
Anyway, it's a great read, especially for anyone who's a parent or teacher.
Thursday, November 08, 2012
Life In The Parallel Universe
It's seemed for a while now that some of the Conservatives in the U.S. live in a parallel universe with some significant differences from our own. You know the universe I'm talking about: where climate change is a hoax, the planet is only a few thousand years old, lowering taxes on the rich magically improves the situations of everyone, and evolution's still - at best - a crazy theory that could never be proved.
Well, in the aftermath of this week's election results, we can add another line item to that list of differences: the reliability of polls in predicting outcomes, and by extension, how math works. Romney was apparently shocked by what happened as the election returns came in. Why, when it had been so clearly forecast by a multitude of polling-aggregators? Well, as an article at Huffington Post puts it:
'[T]he campaign was unprepared for this in part because it had ignored polling that showed the races favoring Obama. Instead, it turned to its own internal "unskewed" polls, which it believed more accurately reflected the situation on the ground. They didn't.'
That's what life must be increasingly like for those folks. They know, to their very core, all kinds of things that just keep turning out not to be true. That's pretty rough, but I find it hard to feel sorry for them.
Well, in the aftermath of this week's election results, we can add another line item to that list of differences: the reliability of polls in predicting outcomes, and by extension, how math works. Romney was apparently shocked by what happened as the election returns came in. Why, when it had been so clearly forecast by a multitude of polling-aggregators? Well, as an article at Huffington Post puts it:
'[T]he campaign was unprepared for this in part because it had ignored polling that showed the races favoring Obama. Instead, it turned to its own internal "unskewed" polls, which it believed more accurately reflected the situation on the ground. They didn't.'
That's what life must be increasingly like for those folks. They know, to their very core, all kinds of things that just keep turning out not to be true. That's pretty rough, but I find it hard to feel sorry for them.
Thursday, August 02, 2012
Don't Abandon The Teaching Of Algebra
While I'm not tutoring anymore, I still find the topic of education - especially Math education - to be quite fascinating. When I saw a New York Times piece entitled "Is Algebra Necessary?", I immediately disagreed with several of the points in it. Fortunately, others more invested in the question have provided detailed responses to it, such as this one.
A key sentence in that preceding response, I think, is:
"Few pre-college math teachers majored or even minored in math, and until more teachers do, improvements will be hard to come by."
That's something I've heard, again and again, from students I've tutored. It's not at all uncommon for a high school Calculus or Functions teacher to rely on students in the class to explain the solutions to particularly tough questions... raising the question, "Did the teacher even understand the solution himself/herself?" It seems to be extremely rare for Math geeks from high school to end up as teachers, since they more commonly go into Engineering, Computer Science or related technical fields. And yet, logically, you want someone very comfortable with high school Math to be teaching it, don't you?
Until that disconnect is fixed, we can expect more and more young people to follow Barbie's example, and declare resignedly that "Math is hard."
A key sentence in that preceding response, I think, is:
"Few pre-college math teachers majored or even minored in math, and until more teachers do, improvements will be hard to come by."
That's something I've heard, again and again, from students I've tutored. It's not at all uncommon for a high school Calculus or Functions teacher to rely on students in the class to explain the solutions to particularly tough questions... raising the question, "Did the teacher even understand the solution himself/herself?" It seems to be extremely rare for Math geeks from high school to end up as teachers, since they more commonly go into Engineering, Computer Science or related technical fields. And yet, logically, you want someone very comfortable with high school Math to be teaching it, don't you?
Until that disconnect is fixed, we can expect more and more young people to follow Barbie's example, and declare resignedly that "Math is hard."
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Should Evolution Be Taught In Schools, American Beauty Pageant Edition
You've probably seen this already, but just in case you haven't:
That 15-minute clip has, among other things, inspired its imitators:
Yeah, both are equally ridiculous questions to be asking in the 21st century, aren't they?
That 15-minute clip has, among other things, inspired its imitators:
Yeah, both are equally ridiculous questions to be asking in the 21st century, aren't they?
Thursday, May 26, 2011
2010/11 Tutoring Schedule Winding Down
With only about a month left in the school year, my tutoring workload is finally starting to ease up. As of today, three of my seven regulars will be done until September or later. They're all primary schoolers who don't have final exams to worry about, meaning that their academic year is very nearly done. The other four, plus one other student who's more sporadic (almost all of whom are in high school), will probably continue for several more weeks before wrapping up.
I've decided that I'm going to try very hard not to have any tutoring sessions over most of the summer, with the only exceptions being students who are in serious distress for the upcoming year. For those who simply want to get a leg up on the next year or who need a little "jogging" of their Math memories before classes start, I'll do tutoring in the last week or two before the school year starts (late Aug/early Sep). That way I get almost the entire summer off (kinda like a real teacher!), which I haven't had since I was a student myself! 2008 saw me working in July (last day of work was Aug 2nd); in 2009 I had a couple of students through the summer; and last year I had several, as well. So I'm looking forward to some down time which I expect to spend on revisions to my novel, Game Over. Vicki and I also hope to take a week in July or August and drive somewhere for our first real vacation in several years, which would be great!
So now all we need is for the weather to smarten up (enough with the rain already!) and Summer 2011 can officially get underway!
I've decided that I'm going to try very hard not to have any tutoring sessions over most of the summer, with the only exceptions being students who are in serious distress for the upcoming year. For those who simply want to get a leg up on the next year or who need a little "jogging" of their Math memories before classes start, I'll do tutoring in the last week or two before the school year starts (late Aug/early Sep). That way I get almost the entire summer off (kinda like a real teacher!), which I haven't had since I was a student myself! 2008 saw me working in July (last day of work was Aug 2nd); in 2009 I had a couple of students through the summer; and last year I had several, as well. So I'm looking forward to some down time which I expect to spend on revisions to my novel, Game Over. Vicki and I also hope to take a week in July or August and drive somewhere for our first real vacation in several years, which would be great!
So now all we need is for the weather to smarten up (enough with the rain already!) and Summer 2011 can officially get underway!
Friday, March 25, 2011
One Year Later (Vicki Sells A Book!)
I just realized that today is the one year anniversary of the Launch Day for No Kid of Ours is Failing at Math (How Parents Can Help), and Vicki just happened to sell a copy of the book this afternoon! This was the first sale of 2011, unfortunately (unless we count the 2 Kindle sales I've had so far), which makes it all the more coincidental that it came today, of all dates! Go figure, eh?
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Getting On The Kindle Gravy Train Bandwagon
Between about 4:00 p.m. on Thursday and 8:30 last night, I was very much a man on a mission. I was working fairly obsessively at producing a Kindle-friendly version of my Math book after a friend pointed me to some information about how easy it is to sell books for that device via Amazon. In fact, he was right: it's a pretty straight-forward and well-documented process, which is always a pleasant surprise to run into.
The complication, once I got into it, is of course in making the book look even half-decent on that eReader. While I imagine it's technically possible to just "port" it over as is, assuming that the Kindle customer will forgive the fact that the book looks like crap on the device, that's not anything I'd be comfortable having my name on. So I spent what probably amounted to 12 to 15 hours creating a Kindle version of my book in Word, iteratively making changes and then seeing what they looked like via a piece of software called the KindlePreviewer. Once I started, it became an all-consuming task (much like programming used to, at times). This was a tedious process, but also a rewarding one: I could watch as my book progressed ever so gradually from God-awful ugly on the Kindle to something I'm at least a little proud of.
For example, I had to figure out what to do with all of the page # references in the original version, as they were completely meaningless on the hand-held device. I discovered that I could replace each with an internal hyperlink, which then opened up all kinds of possibilities for dynamic linkages that I couldn't do with a physical book. In the end, I didn't follow down that path quite as far as I could have, as there were subtle references in the text that, had I taken the time to find each one, could all have been modified to include hyperlinks. To be honest, though, after that amount of time, I was getting fairly burned out and just wanted it published. So I settled for replacing all page and chapter #s with links, along with a few of the less obvious references that I stumbled across.
I also had to reconfigure all of the tables in the Word document, of which there were many! The table borders were not showing up at all on the KindlePreviewer (and therefore, I assume, wouldn't appear on the device itself). Worse yet, the contents of the columns were being squished together with no space between them. Knowing that I had to change them anyway, I took the opportunity to completely change the layout of those tables to something that would look better on the Kindle. The results are great; the amount of work involved, however, was substantial.
Along the same lines, I shifted all bulleted lists all the way to the left margin, since real estate is so limited on that sort of device. Even after doing so, the bullet points still show up indented, but not as dramatically. A handful of other similar modifications were required as I'd see what something looked like via the preview application.
Last night I submitted the book for review. It appears to have passed that stage as it now shows up as "Publishing" on my Kindle dashboard within Amazon, which is supposed to only take another 24 hours. Once it's actually out there, I'll post a link to it if it's accessible via the website (for all I know, you may only be able to see it via a Kindle itself).
Now I just have to decide if I want to go through that all over again for my AgileMan books! For the moment, at least, I'm taking a break. I'm still not convinced that I'll make (m)any sales out of this, but I'd love to be proven wrong!!
[Update the next day: Looks like it's live!]
The complication, once I got into it, is of course in making the book look even half-decent on that eReader. While I imagine it's technically possible to just "port" it over as is, assuming that the Kindle customer will forgive the fact that the book looks like crap on the device, that's not anything I'd be comfortable having my name on. So I spent what probably amounted to 12 to 15 hours creating a Kindle version of my book in Word, iteratively making changes and then seeing what they looked like via a piece of software called the KindlePreviewer. Once I started, it became an all-consuming task (much like programming used to, at times). This was a tedious process, but also a rewarding one: I could watch as my book progressed ever so gradually from God-awful ugly on the Kindle to something I'm at least a little proud of.
For example, I had to figure out what to do with all of the page # references in the original version, as they were completely meaningless on the hand-held device. I discovered that I could replace each with an internal hyperlink, which then opened up all kinds of possibilities for dynamic linkages that I couldn't do with a physical book. In the end, I didn't follow down that path quite as far as I could have, as there were subtle references in the text that, had I taken the time to find each one, could all have been modified to include hyperlinks. To be honest, though, after that amount of time, I was getting fairly burned out and just wanted it published. So I settled for replacing all page and chapter #s with links, along with a few of the less obvious references that I stumbled across.
I also had to reconfigure all of the tables in the Word document, of which there were many! The table borders were not showing up at all on the KindlePreviewer (and therefore, I assume, wouldn't appear on the device itself). Worse yet, the contents of the columns were being squished together with no space between them. Knowing that I had to change them anyway, I took the opportunity to completely change the layout of those tables to something that would look better on the Kindle. The results are great; the amount of work involved, however, was substantial.
Along the same lines, I shifted all bulleted lists all the way to the left margin, since real estate is so limited on that sort of device. Even after doing so, the bullet points still show up indented, but not as dramatically. A handful of other similar modifications were required as I'd see what something looked like via the preview application.
Last night I submitted the book for review. It appears to have passed that stage as it now shows up as "Publishing" on my Kindle dashboard within Amazon, which is supposed to only take another 24 hours. Once it's actually out there, I'll post a link to it if it's accessible via the website (for all I know, you may only be able to see it via a Kindle itself).
Now I just have to decide if I want to go through that all over again for my AgileMan books! For the moment, at least, I'm taking a break. I'm still not convinced that I'll make (m)any sales out of this, but I'd love to be proven wrong!!
[Update the next day: Looks like it's live!]
Thursday, March 03, 2011
And Another Thing...
Sure enough, I ended up spending my evening in a completely different way than I'd expected! After a friend pointed me to some information about how to get my book(s) onto Amazon.com in electronic form for Kindle-reading, I started looking into it... and have now spent about 7 hours reformatting my Math book so that it'll look half-decent on that device! I figure I've probably still got another 4 or 5 hours of work left, so maybe by the end of the weekend I can put that chore to bed.
Here's hoping it's all worth it, although I can't help worrying that I'll see as few sales there as I've seen on Lulu in the past year.
Here's hoping it's all worth it, although I can't help worrying that I'll see as few sales there as I've seen on Lulu in the past year.
A Day In The Life
Today has just been one of those days. I thought I had a handle on it when I got up this morning, but I was completely off the mark.
I had planned to spend the morning playing a little Killzone 3 - which I've barely touched since the weekend - only to receive an e-mail shortly after I got up inquiring after my AgileMan services and wondering if I had a 1-page bio that I could provide. Just like that, my morning was re-purposed toward that hopeful goal.
I thought I had one Math tutoring session for the day at 4:00 this afternoon, but it ended up not happening because the student was sick. (I had to phone about his whereabouts 5 minutes into the session to find this out, though.)
So naturally at this point, I can't help but wonder just how the rest of the day is going to compare with my expectations. We're supposed to be receiving the family cat of friends of ours, in order to look after him while they're away on vacation. Will that still happen? Who can say! I hope it does, though, as it'll be nice to have an actual friendly cat in the house for a change, since Lucy certainly doesn't qualify (and Rascal's been gone for months). Of course, we're expecting fireworks once she discovers that she's got company in the pet department, but it's hard to feel sorry for her.
(The current plan right now calls for our four-legged guest tonight to stay for just over two weeks, followed by a couple weeks of "normalcy" before we get yet another feline visitor for about 17 days. Yes, it feels like we might just be turning into a Cat Hotel around here!)
Vicki's supposed to be tutoring her student tonight, in a session re-scheduled from last night when that pupil was sick! It seems like there's a bug going around, or maybe it's just National Change of Plans week and nobody told us!
I had planned to spend the morning playing a little Killzone 3 - which I've barely touched since the weekend - only to receive an e-mail shortly after I got up inquiring after my AgileMan services and wondering if I had a 1-page bio that I could provide. Just like that, my morning was re-purposed toward that hopeful goal.
I thought I had one Math tutoring session for the day at 4:00 this afternoon, but it ended up not happening because the student was sick. (I had to phone about his whereabouts 5 minutes into the session to find this out, though.)
So naturally at this point, I can't help but wonder just how the rest of the day is going to compare with my expectations. We're supposed to be receiving the family cat of friends of ours, in order to look after him while they're away on vacation. Will that still happen? Who can say! I hope it does, though, as it'll be nice to have an actual friendly cat in the house for a change, since Lucy certainly doesn't qualify (and Rascal's been gone for months). Of course, we're expecting fireworks once she discovers that she's got company in the pet department, but it's hard to feel sorry for her.
(The current plan right now calls for our four-legged guest tonight to stay for just over two weeks, followed by a couple weeks of "normalcy" before we get yet another feline visitor for about 17 days. Yes, it feels like we might just be turning into a Cat Hotel around here!)
Vicki's supposed to be tutoring her student tonight, in a session re-scheduled from last night when that pupil was sick! It seems like there's a bug going around, or maybe it's just National Change of Plans week and nobody told us!
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
When Smart People Decode The Stupidity Tax
Courtesy of Freakonomics, I found this fascinating Wired article about a Toronto man who's cracked some of the lotteries being run in North America. He's deduced that the "random distribution" of numbers on the face of those Tic-Tac-Toe scratch cards is not only not random but it also reveals, sometimes with as high as a 90% accuracy, whether the card is a winner or not! Anyone who plays the lottery should definitely read this one!
Thursday, December 09, 2010
It's No-Show Day!
I thought I had 3 tutoring sessions to do today, but each of the first 2 were no-shows! In each case I think the parent involved was confused by a change in schedules (my 2 Thursday afternoon students usually alternate weeks and each was here last week).
Anyway, what looked like a busy day when it started has been quite the snooze fest in terms of working! I managed to get a little Black Ops in, boosting my kill-to-death ratio up to 1.30 for the first time, as well as reaching level 45. Fortunately my ability to wield the Famas and Strela-3 was not a no-show today!
Anyway, what looked like a busy day when it started has been quite the snooze fest in terms of working! I managed to get a little Black Ops in, boosting my kill-to-death ratio up to 1.30 for the first time, as well as reaching level 45. Fortunately my ability to wield the Famas and Strela-3 was not a no-show today!
Monday, December 06, 2010
Snow Day!
I have to say, today was a pretty wacky day in these parts. Vicki's aunt and uncle from Baltimore braved the localized snowstorm to get back on the highway toward the States after spending the night with us (and having a fabulous visit with us); I had my first "winter walk" with Julie and her dog Cooper, most of it in snow that was up to my knees (the route that would normally take us about an hour lasted just over two hours, I think); I then had a long nerve-wracking drive home that covered about 3 kms but took almost half an hour to complete with several points threatening to leave me stuck in the snow; and I shoveled a whole lot of the white stuff here at home before and after my adventure on the roads... and still didn't keep up with the amount moved by Zac, our teen shoveler!
Vicki wisely stayed home (Monday is usually her day to go into the office on her current contract) but still managed to get 5 hrs of work done (a long day by our standards these days). I read tweets about people pushing stuck cars and delinquent buses (Julie and I participated in one of the former at the end of our walk, and she apparently did 2 more this evening on her own) and lots of folks worked from home. I was glad that I didn't have any tutoring scheduled for today as I would've worried about whether they'd be able to get here and I wasn't really in the mood to work anyway.
In other words, it was a very topsy turvy day. Here's hoping we get back to normality soon... cuz today was nuts!
Vicki wisely stayed home (Monday is usually her day to go into the office on her current contract) but still managed to get 5 hrs of work done (a long day by our standards these days). I read tweets about people pushing stuck cars and delinquent buses (Julie and I participated in one of the former at the end of our walk, and she apparently did 2 more this evening on her own) and lots of folks worked from home. I was glad that I didn't have any tutoring scheduled for today as I would've worried about whether they'd be able to get here and I wasn't really in the mood to work anyway.
In other words, it was a very topsy turvy day. Here's hoping we get back to normality soon... cuz today was nuts!
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
The All-But Forgotten Math Book
When Vicki came home from "the office" recently (she mostly works at home on her current contract but occasionally heads downtown for some face time with her boss) and informed me that she'd sold a copy of No Kid of Ours is Failing at Math (How Parents Can Help) there, I was delighted, as always. But when I went to update my accounting spreadsheet for that product, I discovered that hers was the first sale in about 6 months! Yikes! I knew it hadn't been selling, but that's ridiculous!
Now, as luck would have it, another book request came in just a day or two later, so things are moving again, but... just barely. Of course, I assume all responsibility for this sad state of affairs, as I haven't been advertising or even promoting it like I should. The truth is that sort of thing has always made me feel uncomfortable, and it doesn't seem to get any easier with practice.
As it stands right now, I think we're about 20 sales away from breaking even. I obviously don't think we'll make that mark before the end of the year, meaning that - for the first time - I'll have a net loss in terms of publishing costs within a calendar year. Both AgileMan books achieved profitability quickly, but they were also printed in smaller numbers initially, thanks to some chickening out on my part. Live and learn, I guess.
Now, as luck would have it, another book request came in just a day or two later, so things are moving again, but... just barely. Of course, I assume all responsibility for this sad state of affairs, as I haven't been advertising or even promoting it like I should. The truth is that sort of thing has always made me feel uncomfortable, and it doesn't seem to get any easier with practice.
As it stands right now, I think we're about 20 sales away from breaking even. I obviously don't think we'll make that mark before the end of the year, meaning that - for the first time - I'll have a net loss in terms of publishing costs within a calendar year. Both AgileMan books achieved profitability quickly, but they were also printed in smaller numbers initially, thanks to some chickening out on my part. Live and learn, I guess.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Working The Wife Again
I've neglected to mention hereabouts that Vicki's now on a work contract once again, albeit a much better one than last time. This one has her working from home most of the time (yay!), at a part-time pace (double yay!!) and for someone who's both a friend and a wonderful person to work for (triple yay!!!). It's actually almost too good to be true, but I guess maybe we were due some good luck after all those house-related headaches earlier this year.
Contract work continues to elude me, but my Math tutoring will probably get me fairly close to my 2010 "salary target" of $10K, so that's OK.
Contract work continues to elude me, but my Math tutoring will probably get me fairly close to my 2010 "salary target" of $10K, so that's OK.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Footloose And Fancy Free, That's Me
Vicki's on the train to Toronto to visit Tammy for the weekend, leaving me to my own devices for the next 48 hours or so. How much trouble could I possibly get into in such a short stretch of time, I wonder?
Tonight a couple of friends, including McChicken, are coming over for a special Halloween-themed Movie Night. I don't yet know what we'll be watching, but I suspect it'll be scary.
Tomorrow morning Boneman is kindly dropping by to change the bandage on my back before I entertain a potential new tutoring student and her parent(s). I'll be assessing this Grade 9 to see how I can best help her prepare for her first high school Math course, scheduled to begin in February.
I have no idea what I'll do to pass the afternoon, although video games may be part of that equation.
Tomorrow night is World Series Game 3, which will probably provide some good distraction for me for awhile.
Sunday morning has no plans associated with it yet. By then I'll be eagerly awaiting Vicki's return, I'm sure, which is scheduled to come about during the afternoon. And then we'll be handing out candy rewards to our dozen-or-so trick-or-treaters by sundown.
That's my weekend, at a glance. Unless more interesting stuff happens, which is always a possibility. If you're similarly at loose ends, give me a shout... unless I don't like you, in which case never mind!
Tonight a couple of friends, including McChicken, are coming over for a special Halloween-themed Movie Night. I don't yet know what we'll be watching, but I suspect it'll be scary.
Tomorrow morning Boneman is kindly dropping by to change the bandage on my back before I entertain a potential new tutoring student and her parent(s). I'll be assessing this Grade 9 to see how I can best help her prepare for her first high school Math course, scheduled to begin in February.
I have no idea what I'll do to pass the afternoon, although video games may be part of that equation.
Tomorrow night is World Series Game 3, which will probably provide some good distraction for me for awhile.
Sunday morning has no plans associated with it yet. By then I'll be eagerly awaiting Vicki's return, I'm sure, which is scheduled to come about during the afternoon. And then we'll be handing out candy rewards to our dozen-or-so trick-or-treaters by sundown.
That's my weekend, at a glance. Unless more interesting stuff happens, which is always a possibility. If you're similarly at loose ends, give me a shout... unless I don't like you, in which case never mind!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Could I Ace My S.A.T.s?
I happen to be working with a student right now who's prepping to take his S.A.T.s (which I think once stood for Scholastic Aptitude Test) in order to gain acceptance to an American university. I've obviously heard of these before now, and Vicki would've written them back when she was in high school (in Michigan), but they're mostly a new concept to me. What I especially wasn't expecting was just how easy most of the Math questions seem to be!
Now, I'm doing "S.A.T. prep", via an online site, so who knows if the questions my student and I have been using are truly representative or not... but they're advertised as such. Because they're used for university and college admission, I had always figured they'd be somewhat similar to the Descartes or Gauss Math contests that I've seen in the past from University of Waterloo, for example. Those suckers are hard! And the theory behind them seems to be that anyone short of a genius will find them intimidating, and therefore you'll have a wide range of results across which to evaluate the candidates.
What I see in these S.A.T. questions, on the other hand, are rudimentary challenges like converting fractions between improper and mixed form, solving trivial algebraic equations and understanding how things like exponents and averages work. So far I haven't run into a question that took me more than about 30 seconds to figure out how I would solve it. Maybe the test itself is so time-constrained that I wouldn't really be able to get a perfect result, but short of that: it's not challenging at all.
One particular shortcoming of the test, in my opinion (again, basing it on these prep questions which may not be appropriate), is the large number of missed opportunities among the multiple choice answers. In other words, I see my student start to go down an obvious wrong path in solving a question, and yet the result he comes up with is not among the 5 choices he's presented with! I learned all about that particular trick while taking Physics at Waterloo, and since then I've always assumed that any reputable institution using multiple choice answers would employ it. Without it, exam-writers often realize their mistake simply because their answer doesn't show up among A, B, C, D or E. Naturally, you'd rather test their ability to either do it right the first time or recognize the wrongness of their result. Weird to not see that employed here.
Now, I'm doing "S.A.T. prep", via an online site, so who knows if the questions my student and I have been using are truly representative or not... but they're advertised as such. Because they're used for university and college admission, I had always figured they'd be somewhat similar to the Descartes or Gauss Math contests that I've seen in the past from University of Waterloo, for example. Those suckers are hard! And the theory behind them seems to be that anyone short of a genius will find them intimidating, and therefore you'll have a wide range of results across which to evaluate the candidates.
What I see in these S.A.T. questions, on the other hand, are rudimentary challenges like converting fractions between improper and mixed form, solving trivial algebraic equations and understanding how things like exponents and averages work. So far I haven't run into a question that took me more than about 30 seconds to figure out how I would solve it. Maybe the test itself is so time-constrained that I wouldn't really be able to get a perfect result, but short of that: it's not challenging at all.
One particular shortcoming of the test, in my opinion (again, basing it on these prep questions which may not be appropriate), is the large number of missed opportunities among the multiple choice answers. In other words, I see my student start to go down an obvious wrong path in solving a question, and yet the result he comes up with is not among the 5 choices he's presented with! I learned all about that particular trick while taking Physics at Waterloo, and since then I've always assumed that any reputable institution using multiple choice answers would employ it. Without it, exam-writers often realize their mistake simply because their answer doesn't show up among A, B, C, D or E. Naturally, you'd rather test their ability to either do it right the first time or recognize the wrongness of their result. Weird to not see that employed here.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Who Says Paul Krugman Has No Sense Of Humour?
(Steve Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, does, apparently.)
But when I read a headline like Special Bulletin: Fractions Have Denominators, then I really think there's no room for debate on the matter of Prof Krugman's funny bone!
But when I read a headline like Special Bulletin: Fractions Have Denominators, then I really think there's no room for debate on the matter of Prof Krugman's funny bone!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
A Slow Month Ends
Assuming that this ends up being my final September 2010 post, I'll have set a new low for blogging productivity in a calendar month, at 27 posts (previous record of pathetic output was October 2009, with 28 posts). There's no exciting reason for this drop-off, as I just haven't had as much to say as usual. I've been busy organizing my Fall tutoring schedule, which is continuing to change even as we speak, and trying to get more exercise in (biking, walking, yoga). None of the weekly comic fare lately has been particularly interesting or blog-worthy. I've started playing Halo: Reach but it hasn't grabbed me yet, although tonight may feature some Coop action with McChicken. None of my consulting leads have borne any fruit yet, which leaves September as a pretty uneventful month. Hence the downturn here.
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