Skip to main content

Feltron Intro - Tuesday 9/29/15

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:



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:


  1. 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.
  2. 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?
  3. 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 mathematical skill.
    • Conversely, if you have generally done well in math, but don't understand graphs and charts, you might be a little surprised by how hard you have to work to get them. Everyone's brain is different.
  4. Check in - you. I don't get to see you outside of class, so let me know what's up. Anything interesting happening in your life?
  5. Dylan, Skye, Dashiel, and Esme, pick one or two group members
    • In your groups, (using one Chromebook if necessary), answer one group member's question about something tricky from the last few classes
      • It can be about computing mean, median, mode, range, or graphing, line of best fit, what goes where on graphs...
  6. I will show you the idea I have for a project: I think we should try to each do a version of the Feltron report, which Nicholas Felton puts out every year. See the following, stunning examples:
Spend some time really looking at these, you don't have a lot of other work!

2013

2005


2012


So, the idea would be to measure various things in your life, and then chart them!

For HOMEWORK you will fill the following form out to get the ball rolling on this project:




Comments

Unknown said…
you didn't tell us to give our name
September 29, 2015 at 6:46 PM
Unknown said…
I guess we should just write it in one of the input fields...
September 29, 2015 at 6:55 PM
Unknown said…
Oops! This is the right way to handle this, at the beginning or end just add "by the way, this is Sam" or, you know, whoever you are.
September 29, 2015 at 11:13 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Marvin Minsky, AI, Math Education

The audio is too good to make this a gif. So, to be clear, this is the blog post for THURSDAY, 1/28. If you are looking for Tuesday's post, go back a post. I wanted to mention to you all that a mathematician and artificial intelligence researched named Marvin Minsky died on Sunday. Among lots of amazing things he did in his life, he wrote about math education for the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project. Here is that article ; I'd like you to read it for homework. Speaking of death, check out this amazing visualization ! Finally, for classwork, I would like you to go back to Tuesday's blog post, and comment on other people's homework. Specifically do you like the charts they chose? Are they interesting? Any feedback? Homework IMPORTANT: Pick which 5 (or more) variables that you will track for the Feltron project. Think about how you will keep track of them - pen and and notebook? The Reporter App? A pedometer? Also, that Marvin Minsky article is really...
10 comments
Read more

Bayesian Probability

Read this. Work Come up with > 3 conditional probability questions that are related to that reading and/or Geometric Probability Sign into Google Make a form with those questions, and any needed explanations / diagrams Post a link to the form in the comments of this blog post Other things which need to be done Make sure your Feltron data is entered Start thinking seriously about your Feltron The originals are a good place to start It will be all on the computer - you don't have to make a poster or print it or anything Examples: Esme Bibi's Things to think about HAVING ENOUGH INFORMATION AND CHARTS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT... however, looks matter too Fonts Colors  Just hit space to get another pallet until you find some pairings you like
9 comments
Read more

Bio Homework 3/15

Read this follow up to the movie we watched in class: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/silence-of-the-bees/how-can-you-help-the-bees/36/ and write a 1 paragraph response to the movie and the reading. And remember... study study study! There's a quiz on Wednesday.
Post a Comment
Read more