Sam's Blog

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 (...