Idempotent

Spreadsheet projects are designed to work in an online learning format, especially if the teacher can share their screen or share an editable document with their class. The style is quite different from the textbook presentation which is heavy on calculation and external applications. The spreadsheet operations do most of the calculation and the aim is exploration of structure that a real mathematician would care about. The .zip file includes a .pdf of instructions and a prepared, fillable,

Who is the protagonist of The Grapes of Wrath? What makes a character a conventional protagonist and how can a character be an unconventional protagonist? These questions and more arise in stuyding the main characters of The Grapes of Wrath. Three lessons trace the theme of agency through the story: its expression by and impact on major characters. This resource is intended for students who have finished reading the book. The lessons are written to be as general as possible. The instructor

This activity teaches calculus AB or BC students to use integrals as the dot product operation on functions, treating functions as vectors and performing orthogonal projection on them. The result is a method for approximating functions with polynomials which is different from Taylor series. BC calculus students will also do a quick exploration of Fourier series. Pre-planning: 1 period for AB version ; 2 periods for BC version decide whether activity will be group based or individual minimum on

Teachers frequently get questions from students who are very astute or just curious. A math question that seems simple may have a difficult answer or the answer may connect in unexpected ways to other ideas. This text aims to address commonly asked questions about the algebra curriculum that require expert knowledge to answer. Questions addressed: I don't understand the "machine" analogy for functions.Why does a function have to pass the vertical line test?How is a sequence different from a

AP Calculus teachers need something to teach after the AP test in May. If your students are serious about learning and you are serious about teaching, why not get them started learning quantum mechanics? Seriously. This resource includes three activities, each with three parts which explore wavefunctions and the Schrodinger equation. Students will solve differential equations, find quantized energy levels, approximate solutions with power series, and generally be amazed at the power of calcu

Geometric mean is a topic in geometry that is only used to calculate a pointless length in right triangles. It is a throwaway topic, right? If your students are tired of having their time wasted memorizing calculations they will never use again, they will be demanding to know why they should learn about the geometric mean. Included are three mini-lessons -- one each for geometry honors, precalculus honors, BC calculus. You are saying, "But I only teach, geometry. Why would I bother paying f

Instructors must create assessments for their students that are reliable and valid. They want to avoid discrimination against various student backgrounds and learning differences. Here is a guiding set of principles for writing your own fair and accurate assessments in any subject. I promise that it's better than the slop you were fed in the credential program.

Included are two versions of a semester 1 final exam for a standard AB Calculus curriculum. The first version consists of the simple versions of standard questions; the second version consists of challenging versions of standard questions. They can be used as tests or practice tests. The tests can be finished without a calculator. The questions assume the student is familiar with the derivatives of all elementary functions. A brief introduction to anti-derivatives is optional and those ques

Self-executing lessons are ideal for sub-plans, as supplemental material for "flipped" classrooms, or for any teacher wanting to leverage their limited instructional time. The learning of basic notation and rules is accomplished via pattern recognition. Though they appear to be standard worksheets, self-executing lessons have an organizational structure distinguishing them from the random assortment of problems one typically finds in a worksheet. The concepts, examples, and exercises are caref

Contained are wall posters for a Geometry classroom which show the main theorems in a minimalist style suitable for a word wall or anchor chart display. They are functional and easy to read, not pretty. The presentation does not use symbols other than the name of the concept. The presentation does include occasional auxiliary lines which are used in proving the theorem from prior concepts. They are an aid to memory, not a replacement for it and are therefore suitable to remain hung during an

After ten years of math class, many students have surprisingly not learned math, but they have learned to hate math. This is the opposite of what we want to happen. This activity is for all students, especially the ones who say they hate math and like art. Even though math is a form of art. I know, I know, just humor them . . . Students will learn to draw using the graphing calculator at www.geogebra.org and their knowledge of graph transformations. The instructions include simple examples

It is not always possible to know what a student has learned from previous math classes. This is particularly true if the school year has been disrupted or the student's learning has changed formats. Intervention specialists and special education teachers will find this diagnostic more useful than the standardized tests given to students every year by the state or district. Let's be honest, if you can figure out what a score of "low average" in "operations and algebraic thinking" on the NWEA

It is not always possible to know what a student has learned from previous math classes. This is particularly true if the school year has been disrupted or the student's learning has changed formats. Intervention specialists and special education teachers will find this diagnostic more useful than the standardized tests given to students every year by the state or district. Let's be honest, if you can figure out what a score of "low average" in "operations and algebraic thinking" on the NWEA

Self-executing lessons are ideal for sub-plans, as supplemental material for "flipped" classrooms, or for any teacher wanting to leverage their limited instructional time. The learning of basic notation and rules is accomplished via pattern recognition. This self-executing lesson will get precalculus students started learning calculus over the summer so that next year begins smoothly. It would be particularly useful for calculus teachers needing to accelerate the pacing of their curriculum. DA

Spreadsheet projects are designed to work in an online learning format, especially if the teacher can share their screen or share an editable document with their class. The style is quite different from the textbook presentation which is heavy on calculation and external applications. The spreadsheet operations do most of the calculation and the aim is exploration of structure that a real mathematician would care about. This resource contain lessons for three days along with exercises. The co

If your students are the kind who rebel against memorizing pointless formulae without an explanation of where they come from, they will be infuriated by the topic of rotated conic sections as presented in the textbook. The presentation in this text uses linear algebra, in particular, vectors and matrices in 2D, especially the rotation matrix. These explanations will require predigestion by the instructor. A mastery of vector and matrix multiplication in 2D is necessary. It will be most benefi

For those English teachers who are concerned that "social justice" and "anti-racism" are merely replacing one oversimplification with another, this is a 1-week study of the characters of Satan (Paradise Lost), Richard III, and Mark Twain's mother to better understand the mental state of people who do terrible things. Hopefully, the students will also learn to feel compassion or pity even for bad people. The summative writing assignment prompts students to use evidence from the readings to expl

Spreadsheet projects are designed to work in an online learning format, especially if the teacher can share their screen or share an editable document with their class. The style is quite different from the textbook presentation which is heavy on calculation and external applications. The spreadsheet operations do most of the calculation and the aim is exploration of structure that a real mathematician would care about. This resource contain a lesson for one day along with exercises. The cont

Series convergence is a difficult topic because there are so many possible tests and multiple intermediate steps for each test and sometimes multiple tests that all have to be executed in the correct order. Biologists use a tool called a dichotomous key to classify organisms that look similar. This is a dichotomous key for classifying a series as absolutely convergent, conditionally convergent, or divergent. On each page is a question and, depending on the answer, instructions to go to another

This is a short guide for calculus students (and teachers) for the topic of series convergence tests. It explains in simple language how the three possible classifications of a series -- absolutely convergent, conditionally convergent, divergent -- are related to the three main tests -- Integral Test, Alternating Series Test, Series Divergence Test. All other tests are shortcuts based on these three to be used with specific types of series. Instructors and curious students will be pleased to g