Sam's Blog

Yo! Hanukah baby: You guys got great feedback from your sub. I don't know if you knew this, but having a final exam was determined by how you behaved for the sub! So to say thank you for your great behavior, your final will not be a test. Onto the Feltron. Here are the requirements, sorry they weren't on the blog earlier: Also, Spotify users: check out Year in Music . It automatically gives you great data: top tracks this year, top artists, to albums, total minutes spent listening to music... very useful! You have till the end of class on Tuesday to finish, and I have a good feeling that you will all finish with plenty of time and do great work.

Poppy's first GIF! I will return, with tons of pictures of her, soon! In class and for homework,work on your Feltrons - figure out what kind of charts you want to make, and how you will present them. THEY ARE DUE ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK! YOU CAN DO THIS! Here are some charts I have made for my Samtron 2015:

After Issy determines who did their homework, you guys will spend the class working on Independent Probability . While that is happening, I'd like you to also make a spreadsheet and start entering your data in it. (Iggy, Dash, Dylan and Matthew should be able to show you how). Your only homework over the next week and a half is to: Keep track of your data and enter it into your spreadsheet. After this week and a half break, you will need to send me a spreadsheet of your data. Then we will work on graphing it in interesting ways, and looking for insights in it. (You can start doing that over break if you are the type that puts work off).

Marcelle and I had a baby yesterday!!! It seems that I will be needed at home for a bit. I will be back as soon as I can... but in the meantime, you lucky kids have Issy subbing. Today's schedule 8:30-8:35 Probably get dismissed from circle late 8:35-8:50 Discuss homework ("talk to your parents/family about a time they had to make an important decision and probability/statistics played a big part") 8:50-9:25 Work on: Simple Probability Adding Probability Watch the videos, work in pairs, or ask Issy as-needed. It's homework if you don't finish 9:25 Straighten up, dismissal

I heard lots of complaints about long-term projects in Spanish. Well... We have one in math. Please don't forget about it, and start imagining how you will graph the data you've been collecting. Today's discussion was really good. Turns out, the ECV didn't work - Poppy refuses to turn. It was really wild to watch her fight back against being rotated (on the ultrasound). Finally, as we said in class, your homework is to talk to your parents/family about a time they had to make an important decision and probability/statistics played a big part : medical, financial, school-related are some ideas.

sorry this is late. I was asleep, fighting this fever, and then Marcelle had to go to the doctor all day and it was a bit scary. But everything is ok. Here is the assignment (aren't you glad you already wrote it down like I told you to??) Khan academy exercises: Comparing probabilities And Experimental probability

Let's play a game: There is one weighted coin; the rest are fair. You have to figure out which one is unfair... to leave the classroom. Good luck! Homework Flip a coin 100 times. Record the sequence of flips, eg, H, T, T, H... Count  He number of heads and number of tails. What was your longest streak?

We talked about valid claims. The idea is, sometimes you would like to talk about a group of people without measuring every single one of them. We will talk about this more soon, but to understand it, we will need to understand a concept: Correlation vs Causation. Correlation When two things change together, we can use a fancy word and say they are correlated. When things are correlated, if we know one, we automatically  know the other, at least somewhat. Here's what I mean: If I tell you that a human exists, you don't know much about their weight. The smallest baby ever born (and survive), Rumasia Rahman, weighed a little more than 0.5 pounds (lbs). Jon Brower Minnoch, on the other hand, was the heaviest person ever, and weighed 1,400 lbs at his heaviest. That means that if all I tell you about someone is that "they are a person", and ask "what do you think they weigh?" you only know they weigh between 0.5 lbs and 1,400 lbs - though they probably ...

I'm feeling the thanksgiving spirit: Ok, you all are doing great. Today, more weird statistics stuff:  Valid claims . It may not feel like math, but it is. Statistics is weird like that, so it used to be the branch of math everyone made fun of. NoW, thanks to the Internet, there's so much data and only statistics can make sense of it, so the stats people get all the jobs and money.  Then review fractions. I recommended it to you on Khan Academy, so it will show up on your dashboard. If you can't find it: https://www.khanacademy.org/math/cc-fourth-grade-math/cc-4th-fractions-topic/cc-5th-common-denominators/e/common-denominators https://www.khanacademy.org/math/cc-fourth-grade-math/cc-4th-fractions-topic/cc-4th-visualizing-equiv-frac/e/different-wholes

You need: a pencil, paper, your data journal, and a chromebook Fill in this form/classwork thing ON YOUR OWN: Loading... Then when you finish that, work on Understanding Multiplying Fractions by Fractions Constructing Scatter Plotts Before you leave, make sure I have given you credit for your data journal!

Extra funny gif today! Sorry that so many of you struggled with the homework. I thought that would be easy review. There are a lot more people with a lot more trouble with fractions than I am used to. That is okay. Sometimes, when a comment feels like criticism, it is really easy to get defensive, and try to give reasons or fight back. What I am going to say sounds like criticism, but it is not; it's concern: Fractions are elementary school material. If you haven't learned them yet, you should feel that it is urgent that you do, because you will  have an easier time of things once you understand them. You are not dumb, and you are not bad at math, for not having learned fractions yet . If anything, you are impressive for being able to keep up in math classes without  understanding fractions. But now it's really time to learn them. Often, just learning fractions is the difference between feeling good or bad at math. There is an entire website devoted just to this! H...

Lesson: Finding a missing value given the mean Note to self: don't mention that it's algebra. Before we can go much further in the course, I have to make sure that everyone can manipulate fractions. If you can: great! You will have an easy time. If you can't - I will show you some new ways to look at it that I hope will help. Fraction work - everyone has to do it: Ordering Fractions Adding Fractions Subtracting Fractions Multiplying Fractions Homework: Finish the above, and Finding a missing value given the mean

Welcome back! I hear that it was a great camping trip. I am proud of you. I know that you are all tired after camping then Halloween. So here is what we will do: 8:30-8:50 Get caught up, if you still are missing the assignments I mentioned on Thursday, go to Liz. Then Sam goes over "Exploring the Mean and Median." 8:50-9:05 Work assigned on Thursday and any missing work. 9:05-9:30 If the class, on average, is being good, a nice surprise.  If you are done with all work, I don't want you to be bored. Nor do I want to "punish" you with extra work for moving quickly. So, from 8:30-9:05, feel free to: Do other work you need to do Go to codecademy.com and start programming. It is fun and lucrative and I can help you Work on something I may  assign in the future.

I am so  excited that you are going to Montaña de Oro! I wish I could go with you.  I want you to have a blast. I also don't want you to forget what you have done in this class. So I am giving you some homework - I figure you will do some today / tonight, but you should try to do a bit on Saturday/Sunday as a refresher. Not much, just like 20 minutes. Many of you are behind. I don't want to publicly shame, but if I have to send you to Liz I will. GET CAUGHT UP. Exercises that some of you haven't done, that are late, but you still have to do: Reading dot plots and frequency tables Creating Histograms Reading Histograms Calculating the Mean Calculating the Median Work I am assigning today, to be done in class and after the camping trip: Calculating the Mean from Data Displays Calculating the Median from Data Displays Exploring the Mean and Median

You guys rock! Let's keep the momentum going. Today we will: Go over histograms (if you miss class, here is some info) Work on khan academy Sam will check your data Sam will check if you did the KA from last class (4 still hadn't as of last evening) Your class/homework is: Creating Histograms Reading Histograms and some review Calculating the Mean Calculating the Median Note: we have class Monday, then you go camping.

Notes Dot Plots and frequency tables. I just write a few notes on the board. If you are not in class, it is explained here . Classwork Dot Plots and Frequency Tables  - 4 exercises Also: If anyone wants to show me their notebook today (as opposed to Thursday), I will give you a bonus point. Homework MAKE SURE YOU KEEP TRACK OF YOUR DATA!!! You gotta show me on Thursday! If needed, finish Dot Plots and Frequency Tables

On Thursday, I will check the personal data you have been keeping track of. Google forms are a great way to keep track of your Feltron data. If you would like help setting one up, ask me. Khan Academy Otherwise, work on Khan Academy: Work on " Probability of Rolling Dice " THIS IS YOUR HOMEWORK Practice old material and/or work on something you are interested in

I hope you finished all the Khan Academy exercises? If not, I really have to send you to Liz. I promise, I don't like sending you out. Weekly Reports Make a Google Form which asks "What day is this report for?" and "How many times did you..." for each data point Spreadsheets Follow the instructions on the first sheet Homework The link above has instructions. Follow them. On your sheet, find the average of the numbers on the front page (you have to scroll down). Don't do it by hand.... AND KEEP KEEPING TRACK OF YE OLDE DATA

Question: Who has a Google/Gmail account? Keep working on what we started yesterday: Sign into Khan Academy, and do the following exercises (there are related videos if you need a refresher): This review exercise (get 5 right):  Mean, Median, Mode This Topic,  The Coordinate Plane , which is made up of exercises and videos You need to do the exercises - there are 6 You can watch the videos if you need help, when you are at home, or ask me, if you're in class and it's the right time K.A. may make you do some sort of skills test. Just go with it. If you finish early, I have something you can do to help me out - (list of what's being reported, GForms for all) - ask me what that means, I just didn't want to forget. HOMEWORK Finish the seven exercises for homework by next class, Thursday. KEEP TRACK OF YO' DATA!!!

Intro Ready to track data? If not, talk to me during classwork time, which is most of class.  What you believe about intelligence matters. If you tell yourself: "I suck at ..." "I'm just not good at..." "Some people just can't..."     ...then you are lying to yourself and making your life harder. People are good at things because they work at them. It is easy to believe that others were born with a skill, or that if you are bad at something now, it means you aren't smart. That's not true.  Being bad at something is step 1 to being good at it... Just a friendly reminder. So, hopefully everyone got Khan Academy set up. If you didn't, sit quietly for a few minutes and I will get to you - first, I want the people who did their homework to be able to start the classwork. Classwork Sign into Khan Academy, and do the following exercises (there are related videos if you need a refresher): This review exer...

First, my feedback about the Feltrons: Blinks are too hard and too distracting to count. I am vetoing it! Pick something else to measure. I want there to be at least ONE thing that everyone in the class measure. I will too. If you don't remember what you said, here is the spreadsheet with all your answers. Come up with the FINAL LIST OF DATA POINTS TO TRACK, ONE OF WHICH THE WHOLE CLASS IS TRACKING. Well that was painful, huh? I promise: no more democracy in this class! Notes from class, for those who weren't here (DYLAN) The class chose to record "Time spent on technology" as their variable. If it's got a screen that lights up, you have to keep track of how often you are on it for the next month. You start recording on Monday! Homework: Be prepared to start tracking your data this Monday. Buy a notebook, get an app, whatever you need. Set up a Khan Academy account go to https://www.khanacademy.org/ If you want to use email, just ...

This video accompanies the previous post, but putting it in the previous post was too meta and self-referential for me. Watch it on Youtube for full resolution.

(Students - feel free to read this, but you don't have to... it is for your parents!) Hi Parents! Welcome. Here is what I would like to cover: Who am I? Bio - education, role at TMS, current work Why I am not here What this course is and what it will cover Motivations - selections from "getting to know you assignment" from the beginning of class:  "i've never really been good at [math]" "sometimes i enjoy it but most of the time i feel uhgggggg" "I don't really enjoy math very much" "I'm not very good at it but i try" "i hate math" Title of the course in my head: " Math as Communication: Data Visualization, Statistics, and Probability " Student Goals Be able to effectively read graphs Be able to understand large data sets by using measures of central tendency Be able to communicate likelihood using probability Be able to communicate data sets by producing interestin...

Good morning! Today, I would like to accomplish two goals: I'd like to show you the app Reporter (just in case you change your mind about using a notebook), and I would like you to learn a few skills related to graphing: plotting points, identifying quadrants of a graph, and identifying correlation in scatter plots. Overview: 1) let's all look at this cool app 2) plotting intro 3) quadrants intro 4) correlation 5) mathsketball practice of the above concepts No extra homework, just finish this by Thursday. We will also finish up planning the Feltron (TMS-o-tron? Samtron? Somethingtron?) assignment parameters by next Monday. Here is a bonus gif - this is my sister's favorite Simpson's clip! Her name (my sister's) is Rachel, and she is awesome. Here is her work picture - she is a manager at Airbnb:

Interesting, but not mandatory to watch:

Today's GIF - the best explanation of π I have seen: Watch it a few times. Raise your hand if you can explain π using this gif. So, your homework was about doing a class/individual Feltron project... a TMS-o-tron if you will. I guess mine would be a Samtron. I hope you all come up with good names for your projects. In fact, let's talk about the project. We can put ideas on the whiteboard and see if we can come up with 5 individual data points to track and 5 data points to track as a class. I still vote for poops. But before we talk about that, let's get inspired: I want to show you some more inspiring examples, and talk about reporting tools. Tools as in, "How are you going to collect this data about yourself?" You will have to report it a few times a day... what can you use? A notebook made of paper Pros: easy to set up, no technology needed, no battery that can die, easy to make your own questions Cons: easily lost; if lost, data is gone (...

Rocky asked if every blog post could start with a gif; I like that idea and will try to remember to do it. I'm just gonna start with my favorite: what I want to do in every awkward situation... I think yesterday felt like more material than I anticipated. I don't want you to start feeling overwhelmed. Today, I would like to slow things down and: Tell you that I think you all are doing very well. The "understanding charts" spreadsheet that has all the answers all of you submitted looks really impressive. Check in - material. You don't have to bluff... how are things going? Charts in general? The specific tool we have been playing with (Tuva)? Mean, Median, Mode, and Range? Check in - math in general. One of my goals is to show you something about how math works: even if you have a hard time doing arithmetic or getting problems right in a math class, you still might be very good at making and understanding charts, and that is a very important mathematica...

9/28/15 Monday Check in: Friday class & Homework Classwork: As long as we’re talking climate change... If someone tells you they don’t believe humans are causing it, you might want to ask them if smoking is bad for you. Why? There is as much evidence that humans are causing global warming as there is evidence that smoking causes cancer (you don’t have to click that link, I just like to put it up). Anyway, here’s a chart: It is entitled “Breakdown of the anthropic greenhouse gas emissions by gas, in billion tons carbon equivalent, in 2004” - it is a breakdown of the greenhouse gases emitted in 2004 that humans are responsible for. What’s the biggest greenhouse gas? What’s all that CO2 doing, and where does it go? A lot of it goes into the ocean, which seems better than the air, and it is... up to a point. The more CO2 in the ocean, the more acidic it gets (And the more acidic it gets, the lower its ph gets). That is fine... until it’s not. At some...

Woah, Friday math class came outta nowhere! loading... ^That get's funnier every time. Anyway, you're gonna do some practice finding medians and estimating means, then you will work on your homework. Practice  (Individual): Find the median of the following lists of numbers 100, 200, 300 35, 34, 35 92, 86, 75, 46, 38, 28, 10 2, 4, 6, 8 100, 200, 300, 400 3, 13, 7, 5, 21, 23, 39, 23, 40, 23, 14, 12, 56, 23, 293, 13, 7, 5, 21, 23, 23, 40, 23, 14, 12, 56, 23, 29 Estimate the mean of the following: 4, 7, 8, 8, 10 I'll do this one for you, and write out my thoughts. The median is 8. The two bigger numbers are 8 and 10, the two smaller numbers are 4 and 7. The smaller numbers are further from 8 than the bigger numbers, so the mean gets "pulled down by them"... So I would guess 7. (The actual mean is 7.4, so this is a good estimate) 100, 200, 300 2, 4, 6, 8 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 100 76, 79, 82, 87, 89, 91, 91, 95, 102 Share Any tricks or...

Check in with homework - did you do any? did you do extra? what were your thoughts? Do you have anything you can share or explain to the class? Warm up: Heads up - today I mention acids and acidity. I use the word “acidic.” I could also say it has a low ph. Examples of acidic liquids, or liquids with low ph, are black coffee, Coca Cola, lemonade, vinegar, lemonade, and, at the really acidic end of the spectrum (really low ph) is battery acid. Let’s talk about the drought: Sierra Nevada snowpack is much worse than thought: a 500-year low Don't pray for rain -- pray for snow. Melted snow is 30% of California's water supply Drought reality check: Source of drinking water for more than 23 million Californians is at 33% capacity Find the Mean, Range and Median of the most recent 8 years of this data on temperature (in degrees F) and precipitation (in inches) in California. Computing all that was rough, and hopefully gave you some insight... but once ...

Announcements:   Everyone has been doing their homework, it looks good, I am happy! I notice some of you have trouble spelling. However, you spell phonetically, and I get what you mean, so that's fine. Don't worry about spelling during math because I need you to focus on the math, and not get self-conscious about spelling. Also, about a word I may use: set . It just means a collection. If I say a set of numbers, I just mean a group of them. Nothing fancy. Sometimes I will show things, like numbers, are related by grouping them together with these grouping symbols: {}. Again, it just means they all go together, like so: {2, 3, 4, 10}. Also, for today's lesson I mention "salary." That is how much someone gets paid in one year for working. Questions for you: How is class going so far? How is doing homework this way, with the surveys online? [Note to self: really listen and don’t just think about what you are going to say] Today: Graphs are abo...