Another note from the 'frozen tundra' guy. By the way sorry for the 'frozen tundra' remark back around
February or March but I was just joking.
Anyway,... at Penn Valley Community College in Kansas City, MO we have been through the
screening process several times in the last 8 years. Eight years ago I was on the presentation side and I
was asked to; Imagine that you have given a test item in Calculus I on finding the equation of a tangent
to a curve that passes through a given point that is not on the curve. Further imagine that the class as a
whole did not perform very well on this problem. Make a presentation that would address your
concerns.
The above questions has actually been used several times over the years. I like the flexibility of
allowing the person to design the actual question, as well as scenario. A note should probably
added that request they use something a bit more demanding than y = x^2, they should know better
but sometimes they don't. [Through a bit of Divine intervention I was quite pleased with my choice
x = ln(y) ]
In an effort to generate some new problems for our latest round, spring 96, I wanted to come up with
something that would not neccessariliy have a closed form solution. I considered dozens and dozens of
concepts and problems and finally settled on the following; Show how to find the minimum distance
between the curve y = 2 - 2 sin(x) and the origin. The resulting presentations were both
interesting and telling regarding teaching styles and concerns. We ended up making an excellent
choice, Tim Chappell ( Hi Tim ).
Now although the presentation questions focused on the Calculus level there were several interview
questions regarding lower level courses, teaching background and techniques. In fact, I would say that
the majority of the interview concerns concentrated on teaching below Calculus.
One of our sister campuses, Blue Springs / Independence, requested presentations on introducing
absolute inequalities at the Intermediate Algebra level. The presentations were also very informative. It
was amazing to see such a wide variety of approaches from 5 or 6 people on one topic.
Boy that's enough of that. I want to open my shades and soak in some of the rays from that big yellow
thing in the sky.
Nic LaHue
Penn Valley Community College
lahue@pennvalley.cc.mo.us
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