Infinite Math Ideas

The Mad Farmer (a.k.a my introduction to Calculus)

I actually start my students on Day 1 teaching them the fundamentals of both derivatives and integration. MadFarmer
It’s exciting and it shows them (via my Mad Farmer worksheet) that they already know a lot about Calculus and that it’s relevant to real life (they’ll argue with me that a mad farmer on a tractor doesn’t seem relevant but you get my point). I feel if you jump right into Limits (or worse, a boring PreCalculus review), it just sets a tone of boredom (and sometimes despair). To be fair, I actually assign it as homework and then discuss all of Day 2. I even include an actual free response problem that they can do after they finish part 1 of this worksheet! Continue reading

Extra Help and how to get the most out of it!

I can’t stress enough how important extra help is to being successful in Math. Some of the highest average students in my Honors sections got there because they came regularly to extra help. Another benefit is that a teacher that you might feel is not very approachable, is usually a lot more so at extra help where they aren’t trying to manage a large class.

The problem sometimes is that students don’t know how to get the most out of extra help.

3 things that raised my students’ AP Calculus scores

I started teaching AP Calculus (AB) for the first time about 10 years ago. My students didn’t do so well my first 2 years (the class average grade was below 3). The third year I taught the class I started seeing much better grades. Now our AP scores average is above 4.0. Here are 3 things that I did differently that I think made all the difference:

Better Math test scores via the “I got pwned page”

A place to record problems you struggled with

One of the tricks I suggest to all my students is to create a page filled with all the problems you struggled with or got wrong during the past unit. (I call it the “I got pwned page” – pwned is teen-speak for getting destroyed by something). I suggest students use the last page of your notebook because it’s always easy to find. They should record either a reference to the problem (problem #, worksheet, etc.) or simply copy the problem down.

The night before the test (or a couple of nights before the test!) they should do all of these problems first as part of their practice. Hopefully they have solutions to these problems in their notes. They then check the solution v. their work. If they get it right, just cross it off! If they don’t, come back to it after doing all of the other problems and try again.

How to take effective notes in your Math Class

Contrary to popular opinion, I feel that students should be doing math more often than taking notes. A binder (3 ring) should be used for the technique described below. Note taking should be minimal (better to watch the teacher more and then eventually do problems yourself!) and here is how I teach all my students to do it.