Re: [MATHEDCC] Squares
Sandy Spears (sspears@pop.jcc.uky.edu)
Mon, 6 Oct 1997 16:42:54 -0400
I have 3 separate issues I'd like to deal with here:
1) I'd like to thank all of you who responded about the mandatory placement
issue. I've compiled the responses and plan to share with the rest of our
committee. I appreciate your time in sharing!
2) I'd like to throw out another request for information from those who are
accredited by SACS. How are you meeting the Institutional Effectiveness
guidelines for the math portion of your General Education requirements for
the AA and AS degrees? We are currently forming our plan and in discussion
about this. The sample we've seen is from a college using standardizeds
finals in all their gened math courses but our faculty does not want to do
that and we are searching for other ways. Any other ideas out there or are
you all using standardized finals? Please respond to me so that the list
isn't consumed by a topic not of interest to them.
3) In response to Vince McGarry's assignment for his intermediate algebra
students-perhaps if the directions had said to write their division results
with a whole number and remainder instead of using decimals some might have
seen something. I have found that discovery exercises need a great deal of
detail in the directions if I want them to discover a specific pattern. And
even that might not have worked!
Vince McGarry wrote:
>As a little HW research problem I gave my students in intermediate algebra
>the following: Divide each of the first ten squares by 4, then examine the
>answers. What conclusions can you make about dividing squares by the number
>4?
>
>All the students who responded made the follwing table:
>
>1=F74=3D0.25
>4=F74=3D1
>9=F74=3D2.25
>16=F74=3D4
>25=F74=3D6.25
>36=F74=3D9
>49=F74=3D12.25
>64=F74=3D16
>81=F74=3D20.25
>100=F74=3D25
>
>I haven't read all the answers in detail, but none of the students (out of
>nearly 30) recognized the modulus relationship. Curious.
>
Sandy Spears
Jefferson Community College
Louisville, KY 40202
sspears@pop.jcc.uky.edu
502-584-0181, ext. 2269
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