10/1/2008

I gave my first engineering presentation to the Calculus class today. Since it was the week before the student’s Calc projects were due I thought it would be a good idea to show them the type of projects I work on as a graduate student in mechanical engineering while emphasizing all the parts of a math based project. I brought in a poster from a recent conference so I could introduce the students to my research and show them how the basics of a poster presentation. I highlighted the abstract, background, equations and conclusions while I discussed my research. I was very pleased with the variety of questions the students asked. Some questions were about my research like “Why does that happen?” and “What if…?” Other questions were about my poster like “What’s an abstract?” The most popular questions were “Where did you print that?”, “What program did you use?” and “How much does that cost?” I think the presentation was a success and I’m excited I get to show students more advanced engineering problems.

Math Support, the last class of the day, was populated with nearly a dozen students today. I was happy to see that most of the students that I had independently chosen to target in the algebra classes were the same students that were asked to join the class. I guess we (Mr. MacGregor and I) saw the same potential in these students and realized that they just needed a little individual attention. It is also of interest to me that the math support course is populated with young men. I have not asked Mr. Macgregor if this was intentional but I think it is working for the best. The students are much more attentive, engaged and willing to ask for help with problems.

9/24/08

As a teaching fellow, Mr. MacGregor and I established a few goals for my time at Ypsi High. My first goal is to target about two students in each algebra class not actively participating. I will help these students with class preparation including making sure they have a pencil and paper and reminding them when they should be writing notes or completing an activity. This will hopefully lead to these students learning more during the class period, which will help them with their homework, quizzes, and tests. I will also give informal presentations to the algebra classes. These presentations will be a mixture of math and engineering applications and about college in general and will happen about once every three weeks to once a month. The engineering application presentations will show cool applications or the math that can solve basic engineering problems. The college presentations will range from easy things they can do to help them get into college, when to apply, what kinds of jobs you can get with a college education.

My first goal for the Calculus class is to help the students with their projects. I will serve as a pseudo-consultant that helps with choosing appropriate topics and help the students if they are having difficulties with their project. In addition to helping students with their projects I will give presentations every couple of weeks about engineering applications tied to what the students are learning in class.

Speaking of the Calc class projects, the students are starting on their first term project of the school year and I walked around the class to talk with the different groups about their projects. The projects are based on material from the first chapter of their calc book including exponents and logarithms. Most of the students that I talked to were planning on doing population growth projects and I told them of different animal populations they could look at to complete the applications portion of their project. Another student was planning on doing an investing project so I helped him manipulate his equations to obtain the desired value. I also suggested a slight adjustment to his project to make it more applicable. The students seemed to appreciate my input and thanked me for my help.

Another quick item of interest – A student hugged me for helping him with his class work. It’s nice to know that some of the students appreciate me helping them in class.

9/17/2008 - my first day

Today was my first day at Ypsi High. I had met Mr. MacGregor briefly at the teacher/fellow pairing session but we didn’t have time to discuss plans for the time I would spend in the classroom. We did decide that I would come every Wednesday for two freshmen algebra classes, a repeat algebra class, a calc class, and a math support class. I wasn’t sure how the day would be structured so I decided that I would just introduce myself and tell the students a little about what I did and why I was in the classroom. I talked about my education – going to the University of Cincinnati for mechanical engineering then moving to Ann Arbor to get my Masters and then PhD in mechanical engineering. I also told the students some of my career goals including becoming a professor so I can teach engineering students and work on cool projects that fix problems and help people. I also told them that I was there to help them with math and show them some interesting things they can do with math. The algebra students just stared at me but the calc students were more involved and asked me a couple of questions about going to Cincinnati and Michigan, about what I do as a mechanical engineer, and I even got a couple of statements like “Oh, I want to be an engineer.”

After my short introduction to the algebra classes the class moved into its normal cycle of reviewing the homework from the previous night, completing the problem of the day, then beginning the homework for that night. Since we hadn’t discussed my role in the classroom I sat and watched the students while I listened Mr. MacGregor go over the homework at the board. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of participation in the freshmen algebra classes. Students participated if they were right or not. At one point Mr. Macgregor had to ask one student to wait to be called on because he answered every question correctly as soon as it was asked. He let the student know that he appreciated his participation but he really wanted others to be able to participate as well.

After reviewing the homework the students were instructed to first work on their problem of the day then begin their homework for the next day. Students began asking the teacher questions and began wandering around the room to answer, so I did the same. I only worked one-on-one with about dozen students but they were accepting of me and wanted my help. I’m looking forward to working with more students and showing them things that may peak their interest in math.