Data Challenge
Today I walked into combinatorics, games and puzzles day, with a challenge. Aleeza (a student) and I alternated three throws each of some special dice I brought in, and read out the results for the rest of the class. We ended up rolling over 100 times.
At the end, I challenged the students singly, or in groups, to write down what they thought was going on. I unkindly gave them just a bit more than 5 minutes, and no hints or help, other than to tell them that neither die was weighted. Take a look at the data (beneath the fold) and see if you can figure it out. Do you have an interesting approach or a useful hint?
Many of my students came close, but only one group got a complete and accurate description.
Click here to see the rolls: —> Read more…
20 NYC schools to close – and?
New York City’s United Federation of Teachers (UFT) passed a strong resolution at the November 2007 Delegate Assembly, calling on the NYC Department of Education not to use the lousy, poorly designed “Progress Reports” for closing schools (among other things)
“We never like to see a school closed,” Casey said, “and it’s a sad occasion when that happens…
So the Department of Education uses the Progress Reports to close 20 schools. What do you think the UFT did?
Nothing.
No protest. No petition. No complaint. No appeal. Here’s a statement. Some excerpts follow (below the fold): Read more…
Carnival of Math 22
Submissions for Carnival of Mathematics Are Due
Today is the last day to get submissions in for the 22nd Carnival of Mathematics, over at Wild About Math.
Got something? Submit it.
Little probability quiz
I teach combinatorics as a one-term elective to high school seniors (and a few juniors). We use Ivan Niven’s “Mathematics of Choice – How to Count Without Counting” for two marking periods. But we’ve reached a turning point. Two-thirds of the way through, we drop counting and turn our attention to probability, then games and expected value. We will finish with some analysis of rou- and I break the word up -ll- into three pieces -ette.
Since I have had nothing to post, but since I wrote a nice little probability worksheet, I thought I’d post that. To see the questions, click —-> Read more…
Dragging
I’ve been dragging. Partly sick for three weeks. Working, better, but not all the way better. Behind on everything. And behind on blogging.
I’ve noticed that I’m not the only one… NYC teacher bloggers calling in “semi-sick” is probably the tip of the iceberg. Nasty political season. Teachers and schools getting picked on, overwhelmed, and just starting to fight back. It’s demoralizing. It’s exhausting.
I’ll try to get back to blogging in the next few days, but it might not be until vacation. Thanks for understanding.
Sun-day-links
I found these interesting. You might, too.
- Back to the classroom! I think I might like having this AP (maybe, never know about real life). Tip of the sliderule to Vlorbik for that one.
- Nancy hates doing test prep. [edit, I left out the hates!]
- Rolfe looks at Bush’s mortgage relief plan. Turns out, it’s mostly banks that will be relieved. No big surprise there. Also turns out Rolfe is going to be unemployed. He’s taking it in stride. Best of luck.
- Robert
Dan[oops!] at Casting Out Nines has good advice about preparing for a final exam. - Frizzle’s robots went well, and she teased enthusiasm out of the kiddies like an expert fisherman playing a catch.
- WalMart is opening a charter school? Out in Ohio. They understand the politics better than some other people, I guess. I mean to blog more about this, just haven’t gotten to it.
- There was an anti-Diane Ravitch piece on the Huffington Post. I wouldn’t mind some help in figuring out what the point is. (She’s smart, but I don’t think she is always right. If that’s all the post really says, then I already get it).
- Finally, enough geometry already! Dave Marain has a great factors activity, right here.
Puzzle – quick sum extension
Using the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 exactly once each, the sum of any list of 1- and 2- digit numbers we create will be a multiple of 9. Several commenters demonstrated this convincingly here.
“Pseudonym” (probably not his real name), suggested several extensions, and I added a few of my own:
What are the maximum and minimum sums, using only 1- and 2- digit numbers?- Can every multiple of 9 between those 2 numbers be created?
- If we waive the limit on the number of digits in each addend, verify that all possible sums are still multiples of 9.
- Now, having waived the limits on the number of digits, what are the maximum and minimum sums?
- How many of the multiples of 9 between that max and that min can be created?
- Can we play the same set of games in base n, using the digits 0, 1, 2, … , n-2, n-1 ? Eg, in base 6, using the digits 0 through 5, can we make a list of one and two digit numbers that add to 100 (base 6) ?
Submit comments by clicking “comments,” above, but if you want to submit answers, click right here –> “Answers.”
Quick sum extension – answers
Using the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 exactly once each, the sum of any list of 1- and 2- digit numbers we create will be a multiple of 9. Several commenters demonstrated this convincingly here.
“Pseudonym” (probably not his real name), suggested several extensions, and I added a few of my own:
- What are the maximum and minimum sums, using only 1- and 2- digit numbers?
- Can every multiple of 9 between those 2 numbers be created?
- If we waive the limit on the number of digits in each addend, verify that all possible sums are still multiples of 9.
- Now, having waived the limits on the number of digits, what are the maximum and minimum sums?
- How many multiples of 9 between that max and that min can be created?
- Can we play the same set of games successfully in base n, using the digits 0, 1, 2, … , n-1 ? Eg, in base 6, using the digits 0 – 5, can we make a list of one and two digit numbers that add to 100 (base 6) ?
Submit answers by clicking “comments,” above. But if you want to ask questions or get clarification or make general comments click this link instead.
Puzzle – quick sum
Discuss the following question:
Using the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 exactly once each, create a group of 1 and 2 digit numbers whose sum is 100.
For example, 47 + 30 + 12 + 5 + 6 + 8 + 9 = 117, a bit too much
My professor shared this with me yesterday. He credits Polya for a discussion, but can’t find the reference. Perhaps it’s from a talk.
Voting for merit pay, so soon?
Edwize runs “Teacher News of the Day” every few days. Been doing so all fall.
(The feature uses links from the daily NYC newspapers. Why Edwize staff never calls a chapter leader for a comment is beyond me.)
Only vote for people who pledge to evenly divide the money
Anyhow, remember the UFT ok’ed school-wide merit pay for 200 schools this year, more next year, if the City got the State to reform pensions? Well, the 200 schools were selected last month, and this edition of “Teacher News but not by teachers” links to the Daily News reporting on voting going on in schools. Huh? Schools are “opting in” before the pension reform is enacted???
Did I miss it? Did they vote in Albany?
When it comes to your school, if your school adopts it, there will be elections to see which two teachers join two administrators to decide how to split the money. Only vote for people who pledge to evenly divide the money among all eligibles up front. That’s all titles. All ages. Junior, Senior. Secretaries, Teachers, Paras, Counselors. Do not let them play you against each other.
Be careful that you have a pledge to share equally, and not a pledge to be ‘reasonable’. It will take only the smallest of openings for your administration to drive a wedge.
Teacher Voi…
Lost.
My first year teaching, I lost my voice after 5 or 6 weeks. And then again every year after that, for the first few years. Now it seems to last longer. Maybe I take better care of it. Maybe I am lucky. But my voice has been good for the last few years. Until Monday. Tail end of last week‘s sickness. A little hoarseness third period. And then fourth? Nothing.
So what do you do? Hot tea with honey, I would, except I don’t have honey. Principal says cepacol, but I don’t have any. So it’s been mostly hot tea without honey. And in any event, it’s coming back. Bleaah.
Better ideas?
What did we say about charters?
Oh yeah. That they are being used to break up teachers’ unions. To McFry the nation’s teaching force. To lower wages. To increase hours.
Why not talk about ‘original intent‘? Because nothing anyone said about charters in the 1970’s affects what charter schools are today. (see also any discussion of the Second Amendment).
Charters, vouchers, small schools, and privatization are all part of a package of issues that the right wing uses against teachers’ unions and public education today. Did it have to be that way? No. But it is.
In particular, it is easy to see how small schools could work. I work in a small school that works (special circumstances) and I also know of many others that do. But I also know that the massive small-school-ification that has occurred in the poorest, Blackest, most Hispanic parts of NYC in the last few years has been an overall dismal effort. And I think that this has been the national trend.
What does my union, the United Federation of Teachers, say about charters schools and small schools? Next post…
A Sunday Link-a-Sortment
Hal found a study that relates to the value of homework. Dan may have something to say.
Belated link to Syntactic Gymnastics‘ surprise that her school got a “B.” If you don’t know someone who works in one of these NYC mini-schools-of-fear… you really ought to read the whole blog. She doesn’t write a lot, but what’s there is worth it.
When Leo Casey found that Disney dumped him from their web site, he was right. He thought it was because of the Stossel letter. Nasty Anti-teacher blogger found that Disney dumped a few dozen teachers, and accused Leo of, essentially, being foolish. So maybe it wasn’t the letter. Maybe it was. But Disney acted against a few dozen teachers, including Leo, and whatever the reason, there was a reason. I’ve disagreed with Leo in the past, but in a conflict between the Mouse and a teacher, the teacher’s side is always the right one.
Got this from Robert at Casting out Nines. Click it. Or do something else first.
Finally, watch this video:
Math Carnival: 21 and legal – watch out
Actually, don’t click if you have impressionable young things around… but after the opening profanity, turns out to be a very nice carnival. Twenty-one posts, ranging from my McRib to boxes without topses to the sort of combinatorial topics that are really just too hard, but I’m going to try reading them anyhow.
[Edit: I missed mentioning throwing hot dogs, which, if done with mathematical purpose, is a serious endeavor]
Secret Blogging Seminar is the host, and a neat project in its own right. A bunch of Berkeley folks decided to do a joint blog, and the result feels like a conversation flowing from informal to serious math and back. Read the carnival and follow the links (or as many as suit you), but stick around and browse the blog, too. Even if you don’t go in for the higher math, there’s plenty to read.
The next carnival is in two weeks at Wild About Math. The carnival home is here.
Crummy week wrap-up
- Sick Monday. Felt lousy all week.
- Put on Thanksgiving and post-Thanksgiving weight.
- Scheduling conflict. Largely my fault. Postponed chapter meeting.
- Pissed off 2 co-workers, and vice versa. One’s not talking to me.
- In the process of preparing schedules for next term, learned from kids about 4 schedule changes, 2 of them major, that I should have known before I started. At least four adults could have let me know…
- Made sure a kid who should not have been going on a trip (Am. Museum of Natural History) didn’t go. Checked with other teachers. It was the right thing to do. We agreed. Then why did another teacher tell the kid not that he was banned, but that Mr. 2718 had banned him? So I told the kid “no,” but still… Love that teamwork…
- Didn’t go walking, not once.
- Didn’t visit McRib, not once. (He’ll be back teaching on Monday)
- Colleague died. (Rumor says MRSA, but doesn’t matter. Gone is gone.)
- Watermain break Friday, water stayed on, but possibility building would be closed Monday
The bits of good came, but late:
- (actually before the week started) made soup. Photos to come.
- went on trip to museum (yeah!)
- On Thursday, had an observer in class (training to be a math teacher). I announced she was there. Kid sitting near me whispered (does that mean we can’t have fun today?)*
- Principal called this morning. Pipe is repaired.
- This week is over.
*Best of the best
“I was asked… I was told…”
This has been a lousy week. Sick. Irritable. Making mistakes. Short-tempered. (and didn’t blog, but that’s no biggie).
Good week for phrases that annoy me.
- “Whatever” gets a rise out of me. I don’t like it. I don’t accept it. And I answer in kind. Only, I decide what “in kind” means. Trust me, it’s ugly. But there’s worse.
- If you tell me “I was asked to….” we might already be in trouble. I will understand, likely as not, that you are unwilling to take responsibility for what you are communicating, that you are aware that I might be displeased, and that you are unwilling to tell me who in fact is responsible. I will ask you “Who asked you?” But it might already be too late. I had an AP who used to say this – she’s now a notoriously bad Bronx Principal. It was her inimitable way of saying “Do this without asking questions.” It came up this week, and went as bad as you might guess.
Other (grumpiness-related?) problems from this week:
- I will check calendar before ok’ing any meeting, trips, appointments. I will check calendar before ok’ing any meeting, trips, appointments. I will check calendar before ok’ing any meeting, trips, appointments. I will remember this.
- Don’t send me a change of date notification, and make it look like a confirmation (“date changed” in the subject line might help). Converse: trust that any significant e-mail is disguised.
Sicko
Me, not the movie. Today was my first sick day of this year. Maybe of the last two years, I am not sure. I think I have over 9 days per year in my sick bank. I just don’t use them.
I get sick like everyone else, but normally I work anyhow. I think I caught something from a niece or a nephew over the weekend, and Sunday I was a bit off, and at 5 this morning I had the beginning of a fever and a bad catch at the back of my throat and some painful nasal congestion… for once I decided to take care of it early and not have it run its course while I taught. In Spring 2003 I tried to teach through a bad cold, and instead of losing one day at the beginning, ended up out for almost a week.
Then I figured that being home with no one around, I would read, blog, plan, maybe grade a bit? Nothing. Nada. Nichego. I slept, drank tea, ate soup. I think once I decided to stay home, my body forced me into invalid mode.
But I think it was worth it. Feeling a bit better. Ready to go in tomorrow. Just no energy to fight the cold — I’m missing the UFT candlelight vigil. Oh well, hope the turnout was good.
At least one blogger complained that the vigil is not enough, not nearly enough. And he’s right. But I think he’s not going (choice, not illness). And that is wrong. Because the vigil is a good step in and of itself, a first step, even though much more is needed, and I hope lots of you are en route right now.
Vigil Monday at City Hall
(I edited it slightly. Original was signed by randi – jd2718) |
Being appreciated
Teachers are generally underappreciated. Which makes getting appreciated publicly so much sweeter.
Lookee here: Reader Appreciation Month!
There is a blog for teachers called “So you want to teach?” and they have spent all of November ‘appreciating’ teachers. Sixteen so far. Click over. Read what teachers say about their favorite teachers, why they teach, and what tips they have.
What a great idea this was!
(and look for me. I was #15)
Homework – Size Matters
I have a homework policy. I give daily homework assignments. And they are all, more or less, the same size.
- Tuesday’s assignment and Friday’s (weekend) assignments? Same size.
- Monday’s assignment and pre-Xmas break assignment? Same size.
- Every day, just the normal 20 – 45 minute piece of work.
But this long weekend, I gave no homework, just time to catch up (if need be). I’m grading, but they have time off. I won’t do it every break or long weekend, but once in a while, it’s nice.
Do you give homework over long weekends and breaks? Are your break assignments bigger than your regular assignments?
And for students, parents, administrators, college instructors, anyone else, what do you think?
T-Day wishes/links for teachers
Happy Thanksgiving to all! others included :-)
- See the Teacher’s Thanksgiving Potluck, over at Ms. Whatsit’s.
- See the Thanksgiving Carnival of eduction (I’m not included, my fault for misreading the deadline)
- See my Thanksgiving puzzles.
And have a safe, happy, relaxing four days with family, friends…
Get a good battery recharge – we have last stretch until Christmas vacation (or final exams for those of you at college).
Happy Thanksgiving!
Teacher turnover
The City created lousy Progress Reports, and got hammered in the press. The UFT went after them. Then national test results came out, and the City looked bad. So what does Bloomberg do? Investigate? Fix the problems? Nah. He goes to war against “bad teachers.” And today the UFT hit back hard, blaming the City for not being able to keep good teachers. (we should have hit them for driving out new teachers before they even have a chance to get good.)
lets publish the school by school turnover numbers
So here we go. We’re talking about high turnover. But we use the DoE’s data. Let’s ask our own DRs to ask our own Chapter Leaders for the data: how many teachers left each school since last year? Let’s get our own data, relying on our own people. And lets publish the school by school turnover numbers – in the New York Teacher and on the web. Get the TO for last October and this one, turn it in to Central, and report the numbers.
I note here the semi-passing of the UFT’s “Grapevine” – a website devoted to getting teacher comments about schools, so those thinking about transferring could get prior info. The intention was good, but decentralized information… you never really knew what you were reading, and it didn’t catch on. Edwize and the UFT front page dropped the links, and it remains on the UFT webpage, but hard to reach, and called …Open Market Transfer – School Comments.
Thanksgiving Combinatorial Puzzles
In Combinatorics today students worked in groups of 2 or 3 on a set of 6 puzzles. The rules and puzzles are printed beneath the fold.
Several have already appeared on this blog. Sorry for the repetition. And one is much harder than I intended. Can you find it?
And that turkey? Links to a page full of Thanksgiving word searches, crosswords, jig saws… ie, real Thanksgiving (non-combinatorial) puzzles.
Click for my worksheet —> Read more…
Meetings and this UFT Chapter Leader
A lot!
- Delegate Assembly. Once a month. Downtown. Free piece of fruit, and coffee/tea. Next , December 12.
- District Rep’s Meeting. Once a month. Here in the Bronx. Pizza, salad, soda. Next, December 5.
- HS Cttee Meeting. Once a month. Location Rotates. Next, November 27. (I usually don’t go because they are on Tuesdays this year, when I teach, but I think the 18th is after my final exam).
- Exec Board Meeting. Twice a month. Downtown. Buffet. I am not a member, but attend about half. Next, November 26.
- Safety Committee (school level). Once a month. In my school. No food. Next, this Wednesday.
- Faculty Conference. Once a month. In my school. Today. Next, December 17.
- School Leadership Team. Once a month. In my school. Buffet. Tonight. Next, December 17.
- Parents Association. Once a month. In my school. Coffee/cookies/cake. Tonight I chatted outside and graded. Next, December 17.
- UFT Chapter meeting (school level). Once a month. (repeated, back to back) In my school. I chair. Brownbag. Next, November 29.
- Consultative Committee (school level). Once a month. In my school. I chair. No food. Next, December 6.
- This year I have been skipping the once a month Professional Staff Congress Delegate Assemblies. Downtown. Late. Good food. I don’t know when the next is.
(bit beneath the fold —>) Read more…
JD2718 