# College Math Teaching

## February 8, 2016

### Where these posts are (often) coming from

Filed under: academia, linear albegra, student learning — Tags: , — collegemathteaching @ 9:57 pm

Yes, my office is messy. Deal with it. 🙂 And yes, some of my professional friends (an accountant and a lawyer) just HAD to send me their office shots…pristine condition, of course.
(all in good fun!)

Note: this semester I teach 3 classes in a row: second semester “business/life science” calculus, second semester “engineering/physical science” calculus and linear algebra. Yes, I love the topics, but there is just enough overlap that I have to really clear my head between lessons. Example: we covered numerical integration in both of my calculus classes, as well as improper integrals. I have to be careful not to throw in $\int^{\infty}_{-\infty} \frac{dx}{1+x^2}$ as an example during my “life science calculus” class. I do the “head clearing” by going up the stairs to my office between classes.

Linear algebra is a bit tricky; we are so accustomed to taking things like “linear independence” for granted that it is easy to forget that this is the first time the students are seeing it. Also, the line between rigor and “computational usefulness” is tricky; for example, how rigorously do we explain “the determinant” of a matrix?

Oh well…back to some admin nonsense.

## January 26, 2016

### The walk of shame…but

Filed under: academia, research — Tags: , — collegemathteaching @ 9:07 pm

Well, I walked to our university library with a whole stack of books that I had checked out to do a project…one which didn’t work out.

But I did check out a new book to get some new ideas…and in the book I found a little bit of my work in it (properly attributed). That was uplifting.

Now to get to work…

## August 21, 2015

### Just shoot me. Now. (personal…and my screw up…)

The upcoming semester line up:

1. My original schedule called for science/engineering calculus II, “business calculus” I, and numerical analysis. No, my specialty is pure math (topology) but I got roped into teaching this course a few years ago, and because no one complained…guess who is stuck with it now? 🙂 (and yes, as an undergraduate, and once as a part time graduate student, I made C’s in this class)

2. But a part time faculty who taught our actuarial mathematics classes got called away so..I said “if you can’t find anyone else…” and so I got stuck with that class (in lieu of the “business calculus” class)

3. I get an e-mail about the class; I read the Fall 2014 syllabus and so prepare based on that (since it is Fall 2015)..but the topics for that class go “spring, fall, off, fall, spring” instead of “fall/spring”…so I had prepared FOR THE WRONG CLASS and ordered THE WRONG BOOK.

I caught that a week prior to classes starting..hence frantic e-mail to the department chair and secretary….and I’ll have to really work some this weekend.

Fortunately much of the stuff in this topic (“life contingencies”) is like reliability engineering and I’ve had that class. Things like the “survival function” and “bathtub curve” are familiar to me. The mathematics won’t be hard; I’ll have to focus my self study on definitions and notation.

Still, this is more interesting than I’d hoped that it would be.

The positive: I’ll have learned some new mathematics (I always learn something new every time I teach numerical analysis) and new applications of mathematics (the life contingencies …and I’ve already learned a little bit of interest theory by preparing for the class that I thought that I was teaching..)

The university
But our university (6000 students, 5000 undergraduates) is suffering from an enrollment slump for the second year in a row. We are at about 85-88 percent of what would be a “healthy” enrollment. The place is in turmoil; we lost our athletic director, provost (left) and president, the flagship basketball team has hit rock bottom and things are in disarray.

So we have a second “small” class but this time: enrollments are UP in our remedial sections. UP. And many who couldn’t place into our regular calculus sequence have been admitted…by …engineering. Seriously. They are hurting that badly, and when they hurt, WE hurt.

I’ll be shielded from much of that in the classroom because of the classes I am teaching BUT with these changes come “changes in major”; we are going to try to make our major easier to navigate by trying to maximize flexibility by making our “required courses” less prerequisite dependent. It will water down the major somewhat but hopefully make it more likely that we keep a major.

Oh well…this is what I get for taking my Ph. D. in pure mathematics instead of applied. 🙂