At the Science Olympiad held each March at Terra, students are asked to
estimate volumes, areas, lengths, temperatures, etc. of certain objects.
The first step is to go to one room and estimate then go into another room
with the same objects and actually compute the necessary information (a
calculator is allowed here). It is amazing how far off these junior and
senior high school students are!
Switching gears ****************************
I am also concerned about how students will perform in distance learning
courses. I have developed a course on video which is a "self-help" course
for the TI-85. Students have the videos, a video guide book, and a text
book, and work at their own pace. This seems to work (however, some
students lack the motivation to finish the course during a normal quarter).
I am wondering how students can take an intermediate algebra course or a
precalc course through distance learning and really get as much out of it as
they would in a regular classroom where group work is done.
At Terra we have begun Sunday evening courses. I believe that one night a
wek courses for mathematics would be quite difficult. For the spring
quarter, since Easter and Memorial Day cause the school to close two
weekends, the time frame for each five hour class must be extended on Sunday
evenings to account for the lost of that time. (Essentially, one hour of
class time must be added each week to make up for the lost days.) I voted
for no math classes on a single day. What experiences do you have with that
idea? Do you believe it to be educationally sound? I would appreciate your
input!
\
Nancy J. Sattler
nsattler@terra.cc.oh.us
Terra Community College
Fremont, OH 43420
At 06:21 PM 1/23/97 -0500, you wrote:
>In a message dated 1/23/97 4:34:24 PM, ssmith@ADMIN1.AUGUSTA.TEC.GA.US
>(Sharon Smith) wrote:
>
>>Somehow I feel out in left field. I just graded an exam on decimals for an
>>arithmetic course used in our diploma programs. Is the concept of rounding
>>important? Should a student know how to do that? Should they know how much
>>money the company would save on 500 of something if the price drops by so
>>much? My students have calculators and have grown up with calculators, but
>>still struggle with these problems. I can hardly wait till we get to
>>applications with fractions! The calculator can do the calculations, but
>>unless students have an idea of what is going on they are still in trouble
>>even if dealing with real data. For many of my students their world is so
>>small they don't even have a bank account and many feel numbers have no
>>place in their real world - even when they are faced with real world
>situations.
>
>I teach 7th grade math and part of the 7th grade curriculum requires them to
>know how to round from millions to millionths and I think it IS important for
>kids to know how to round. Some kids come to me not even understanding that
>if you have $23.6758 and need to round it to the nearest cent (hundredth)
>that it would be $23.68. Some also do not know how to estimate answers which
>I also feel is very important. I think people use estimationpretty much on
>a daily basis and you need to know how to round to estimate.
>As for calculators, I don't let them use them to do basic facts, such as 9 x
>8 (but they do try!!! - ugghhhh!). After they have mastered certain things
>(like multiplying decimals) I do let them use calculators to do multi-step
>story problems but they have to show me how they set the problem up. I use
>calculators more with my talent developement classes than the others.
>