BITTERSWEET

I'm sure everyone is thinking the same thing, "Math is FINALLY done! OH YEAH!" that's great and all but when you stop to think about it, math was really fun. I really had fun in that class, I can honestly say that it's the best class I've had ever. Math was actually fun because I had my friends and everyone else there was friendly and helpful. We worked as a class and everyone got along well. We fought in class but that was all based on math, that's how we learned. It's sweet that we don't have to worry about math now, however it's bitter because everyone made math bearable! It was like fun and math put together, didn't think that there was such a thing. Well, I'm going to miss this class the most. Good luck with you all!

-SAMUS

Class Survey Results

The exam is over and we did a little survey in class. The results are below; 27 students participated. If you'd like to add another comment on what you see here email me or leave a comment below this post.

Without any further ado, here are the results of our class's survey. Please share your thoughts by commenting (anonymously if you wish) below .....

Classroom Environment
The questions in this section were ranked using this 5 point scale:

Strongly Disagree	Disagree	Neutral	Agree	Strongly Agree
1	2	3	4	5

The bold numbers after each item are the average ratings given by the entire class.

1. The teacher was enthusiastic about teaching the course. 4.89

2. The teacher made students feel welcome in seeking help in/outside of class. 4.52

3. My interest in math has increased because of this course. 3.70

4. Students were encouraged to ask questions and were given meaningful answers. 4.74

5. The teacher enhanced the class through the use of humour. 4.56

6. Course materials were well understood and explained clearly by the teacher. 4.15

7. Graded materials fairly represented student understanding and effort. 4.16
(This question was answered by 26 students.)

8. The teacher showed a genuine interest in individual students. 4.19

9. I have learned something that I consider valuable. 4.48

10. The teacher normally came to class well prepared. 4.56

Overall Impression of the Course
The questions in this section were ranked using this 5 point scale:

Very Poor	Poor	Average	Good	Very Good
1	2	3	4	5

1. Compared with other high school courses I have taken, I would say this course was: 4.30

2. Compared with other high school teachers I have had, I would say this teacher is: 4.78

3. As an overall rating, I would say this teacher is: 4.70

Course Characteristics

1. Course difficulty, compared to other high school courses:

Very Easy 0%

Easy 4%

Average 22%

Difficult 59%

Very Difficult 15%

2. Course workload, compared to other high school courses:

Very Easy 0%

Easy 7%

Average 48%

Difficult 37%

Very Difficult 7%

3. Hours per week required outside of class:

0 to 2 15%

2 to 3 37%

3 to 5 15%

5 to 7 26%

over 7 7%

4. Expected grade in the course:

F 11%

D 15%

C 37%

B 37%

A 0%

Specific Feedback
[Ed. Note: Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of students, over 1, that gave the same answer.]

What was your best learning experience in this course?

Learning other things in life that involved math (3) The Blog (16) Workshop Classes (6) Developing Expert Voices Project (11) the SMARTboard (5) flickr assignment group work (7) pre-tests (6) interactive work (2) class discussions (4) scribes (7) Mr. K. (2) asking questions the different projects we did Mr. K's speeches

What was your worst learning experience in this course?

Developing Expert Voices Project homework (2) not doing homework not asking questions working alone (4) late getting tests back (2) flickr assignment group work (3) doing my Developing Expert Voices Project alone nothing (3) pop quizzes not knowing what to do (3) "that I learned awesome software called SMARTboard" whenever Mr. K. was absent not being able to answer easy questions

What changes would you suggest to improve the way this course is taught?

teach slower teacher gets off topic and makes me lose motivation teacher sometimes wordy explaining different concepts bring back Go For Gold lighten the homework load give tests back ASAP (4) ask and solve questions consistently; not in different ways more group work (2) more math jokes more review before the exam none (4) start semester with a test on previous knowledge give more notes instead of just lecturing bring back the "Math Dictionary" (2) bring back the del.icio.us box

Additional Student Comments

this class was the best ever the teacher answered questions even when asked 100 times good use of SMARTboard technology I really enjoyed this class; it was fun and not boring Mr. K. was extremely enthusiastic and creative about everything

It's interesting to compare the items that were considered both the worst and best learning experiences. Also, take a look at the list of worst learning experiences compared to suggestions for next year. Help me do a better job next year by commenting on what you see here ....

Today's Slides: January 23

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Today's Slides: January 21

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Today's Slides: January 21

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Today's Slides: January 18

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Today's Slides: January 17

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Did You Know?

Did you know I wrote this post last year and now I get to write it again?

Did you know I can see your classroom from two windows?!

My first window is your blog. I am excited by what I see and hear! I never cease to be amazed by the quality and sophistication of your scribes; you constantly achieve new heights in illustrating and annotating your scribes. More than that I am so impressed when you celebrate each others’ learning, when you are creative, and when you critically reflect upon your learning in your BOBs.

Did you know Mr. K’s blog is my second window? I admire and respect what I see and hear here too! Did you know that Mr. K celebrates your learning on his blog? that he reflects upon what best helped you to learn and why? that he unselfishly shares all he knows with those who read his blog? that he learns from the conversations on his blog? that he writes with passion and is creative? and that he commits many random acts of kindness by honoring other teachers’ accomplishments in his posts? Did you know all he expects of you, he shares those same expectations for himself?

Did you know that because of all that and more, Mr. K.’s blog has been nominated for “Best Education Blog” on the Canadian Blog Awards 2007 website?

I just happen to think that no one deserves this honor more than Mr. K.

What about you?

Scribe

Alright now in the morning we had a test on probability which I'm sure most of you did well on as it seem easy, all that review and group work payed off i guess.

As for the afternoon class we started to introduce our new unit a bit more, Sequences.

A Sequence is an ordered list of numbers that follow a certain pattern or a rule

we learn a few definitions as shown on today's slides:

we work on questions such as:

8, 14, 20, 26, 32, .......

we know by looking at this that it appears to be increasing by 6

so the next 3 values would be 38, 44, 50, but what will be the 56 value? the 116?

you could count all the way up to the 56th term but that's a lot.

so we can create a formula for this sequence.

So now to find a Common Difference

to refer to the Common Difference we use d.

To find d we will need to find the value of 2 terms tn and t(n-1).

so d=tn-t(n-1)

d=t2-t1

d=14-8

d=6

now to create the formula for this Sequence.

to find the nth term in an Arithmetic Sequence. we use:

tn=a+(n-1)d

a being the first term in this case 8

n is the "rank" of the nth term in the sequence which is 56 and 116.

d as we know is the common difference.

now that we have the formula we can find t116 and t56

t116:

Solution:
a=8
d=6
n=116

t116 = 8 + (116-1)(6)

t116 = 8 + (115)(6)

t116 = 8 + 690

t116 = 698 therefore the 116th term will be 698.

t56:
Solution:

a=8

d=6

n=56 (other values have stay the same only thing different is the n term of the sequence)

t56 = 8 + (56-1)(6)
t56 = 8 + (55)(6)
t56 = 8 + 330

t56 = 338 therefore the 56th term will be 338.

to find the implicit/linear function

using: y=mx+b we can find this function

since this sequence(8,14,20,...) is constantly increase by 6 we now that this is a linear function

we can create the equation is we know:

d and the y intercept

we already know d so lets find the y-int

m=d

b=y-int

x=n

So we already know: tn=dn + b

to find b we must find the oth term to do this we know the sequence increase by 6 so from 8, the 1st term we can find the 0th term

t0=8-6

t0=2

and there we have it t0, which is the y-int is b so the equation is:

tn=6n + 2

so to test this let use n=4 which is 26

t4 = 8 + (4-1)(6)
t4 = 8 + (3)(6)
t4 = 8 + 18

t4 = 26 therefore the 4th term dose = 26 to our first equation.

now is it the same for our implicit equation?

t4=6(4) + 2

t4=24+2

t4=26 same answer with less the work.

that's pretty much what we went over this class, now its time for me to choose a scribe at random..............ok done and it will beee: wendy

Today's Slides: January 16

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BOB

Well it is time again for us to BOB. This unit " probability" wasn't as tough as it was for me in past years of precal. However there were some new concepts and ways to solve questions that provided me with some difficulty. My muddiest point would be not knowing when to use the "Choose" and when to use the tree diagram. Somewhere along those lines I get a bit upset. Hopefully today I'll be able to do well on the test.

Last Minute BoB

VERY late Bob post and there is a perfectly good reason for this...which i have no business typing out here. Anyways on to the BOB!

The unit was quick. Just as we were learning the stuff and you think you got it all what should happen? He pulls combinatorics out of nowhere! COMBINATORICS! I seen that and was saying to my self "What in the H - E Double Hockeysticks was going on"

I guess the thing that gave me the most trouble was the the type of questions where we were given one of the probabilites then told to find what was the chance it was from the previous event. Like yesterdays pretest...we were told that john was late for class (or was it on time?) then asked to find what were the chances he brought his lunch. Those kind of questions were giving me quite a bit of trouble.

For a day or so i didn't understand the mutually exculsive idea, but it was soon resolved. I hope that i can just remember for the upcoming test.

B0B

heyyah! this been a combination of hard stuff and fun stuff. The probability that I gonna failed this test is 70% but if I study....it would be 40% anyways my muddiest part is choose formula although I understand it more every time I apply this to solve the probability.well...may we have a nice day tom.

BOB

Hm okay, so probability wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. At the beginning, I had a good understanding of what probability was and was able to answer these problem solving questions. But, as we got further into the unit, the questions began to get harder. Sometime while we were learning mutually exclusive and not mutually exclusive I got confused, but we cleared it up the next day. My muddiest point would have to be when these probability questions began to have combinatorics in it =S Overall, this unit was okay .. I don't like probability as much as I liked it in the beginning heh. Goodluck to everyone.

BOB

I think probability is a difficult unit. I never understood probability that well. Drawing tree diagram is really helpful to solve some of the probabilities. Some of the questions that have to use what we learned from combinatorics . . .
Good luck everyone!

BOB

sigh* i found this unit easy in the begining and gets harder as it ends. The beginning part till the independant and dependant things were easy to understand. but I think when we start doing the workshop, things got a little harder. I found most of the question hard to understand for some reason and answering the questions is pretty confusing since there were so many ways to get different answer making you think if what your doing is right or wrong. Anyways, this unit was okay I guess as long as i can understand and figure out what the right thing to do is, I guess I will be okay. Sigh* I guess that's all I have to say now since i have lots of things to do still.. good luck guys!! XD

BOB

Probability was a difficult unit. I dont know what exactly my muddiest point is but all I know is that I always get confuse what to use for every question. Each question has its own technique to answer them. Good luck everyone!

B.O.B.

Second last BOB, hallelujah! This unit was incredibly boring, as well as confusing. I didn't enjoy one bit of it, especially how it requires you to think outside the box, definitely not my thing. Probability sucked big time for me. Although, at one point I was becoming a professional at drawing tree diagrams. I think what threw me off the most was that we began the unit BEFORE winter break, definitely a bad idea. I am probably going to fail miserably on the test. Good luck to everybody!

BOBING FOR MATH

This unit went by pretty quick. I didn't like any of it. What I found the easiest were those question where all you have to do is draw a tree diagram then your answers are on there. For all questions you can draw tree diagrams, however theres ones where it takes a long time and there are many branches. The questions that i really didn't like were those ones where they're not mutually exclusive and the ones with the word OR in them because now we have to pull out the choose stuff and consider other things, etc. Overall, i did not enjoy this unit one bit and this will be one of the hardest tests for me. Well, good luck to all practice hard.

-SAMUS

Probability BOB

Probability was such a short unit. When we started to talk about mutually exclusive things, I was kinda lost at first, but after a while I got it and it was all good. =) When we got into the choose formulas, that was when I started to get confused. I sometimes don't know what numbers to use. I had a lot of trouble in finding what the denominator should be. Some parts of the numerator I was able to figure out. Sometimes I wouldn't know whether to add or subtract the probabilities when it didn't have an 'and' or an 'or'. Over all, I don't think this unit was too bad. It was... so, so. Anywho... happy studying! =D

BOB

Alright! this was quite a short unit and it was interesting. Some of the questions you find that you've got to think deeper even though it seems like a pretty straight forward answer. It's quite tricky. Over all I found this unit understandable for the most part. It's just those little things you have to watch out for when faced with a probability question. Also, another reminder, probability does involve having to use some of your combinatoric unit. That's all, I hope everyone enjoys the test tomorrow ~.

BOB time =)

as usual ... mr. k starts the unit with something simple and something i actually understand and then BAM ... i have no idea what is going on. LOL. what i really needed for this unit was a lot of practice and i mean LOTS of practice. erhm. the end was really complicated for me. especially the pretest today; like question number three; i was completely stumped when mr. k explained the solution. i wished that we would've done this unit right after combinatorics because when we started mixing combinatorics with probability i almost forgot what combinatorics was. haha *sigh* anyways. i wish everyone good luck tomorrow!! =)

BOB

This is Alanna's BOB for the unit on probability.

This is unit is understandable. I had expected it to be quite challenging, with experiences from the past. I have always had trouble with this unit. I do know the stuff. But getting started is what I have the most trouble with. Once I get started I know what I'm doing. At first I understood it very clear. I was positive on what I was doing...but I don't mean to sound rude but Mr. K you tend to explain too much that it gets over my head.. I start to overthink then BAM I can't grasp it anymore. Sometimes I'm able to get back on track. Another problem I have is trying to figure out what the question is asking.
I detest this unit.

Possibly the last time we BOB

If I wasn't hallucinating, Mr. K said this would be an easy unit? Maybe I'm just mixing things up now though. Well, anyway, this unit was not easy at all. It's quite confusing besides the ones where you gotta draw that tree, that makes it a lot easier. I didn't like the questions on the pre-test at all though, didn't seem like anything we've ever done, except the last one involving "Jeff" who later on became "John". I think figuring out what to look for, what to use, and what to find, is pretty bad itself. I don't think I'm gonna do too great on this test.... not that I have on many.

BOB

right, this unit on probability would probably be one my my favorites, its easy and if i understand what the question is asking for its not that hard to set up a solution. But i find it somewhat difficult at times what the question is trying to say, since we did a lot more question like those since then i will try and review those types and see if i can get a better understanding of what the question is asking for.

i guess i don't have much too add on to that soo good luck on the test everyone

Blahging on Blahging

Okay c'mon you can't do that. In the beginning of the unit I was all high and mighty cause I thought I actually finally fully understood a unit, but what did Monsieur K do? He flipped EVERYTHING upside down, and now I'm scavenging for answers in my exercise book, and looking at the blog 50 times per second. Oh well i should've expected something like that to happen. I'm a dead man.

BOB

Hey guys here's my bob for the probability unit. I think that the unit was overall okay, but not that great. At first I thought it was pretty easy and straight forward, but as we progressed towards the end of the unit it got a little more complicated. I think the thing that kind of throws me off is the choosing and distinguishable outcomes stuff. When I do questions I don't really know how to set it up in that way and my answers come out totally wrong, but when it is explained I understand how to do it properly. So hopefully I'll be okay on the test. Well good luck guys (:

bob

hey its King Leonidas. j/k its ant. anyways probability, the unit was enjoyable excluding the pre test this morning. i thought i had the lunch question nailed, turns out i got it wrong along with the 10 dollar bill question and the lottery question. i hope the test is not like that, for some reason i presumed those questions was like the air conditioning SUV problem from the day befor. when i tried to approach it the same way i failed horribly. but i must be off physics awaits. " No prisoners! No mercy!"

BOB

Bobbing again... Anyways, this is one of the hardest units ever. In the beginning i thought that this unit was pretty grabby. I pretty much understood some concepts too. But not until Mr. K had given us some problems that uses the choose formula, non-distinguishable permutations etc. I said to myself this unit was really hard! They were very confusing. The unit test earlier helped me a little bit and i hope that was enough to ace the test tomorrow. Goodluck guys.

Probability

Hello folks. This is Precious and this is our scribe post for today.

Well today is our Pre-test day. As we had done before, Mr. K gave us a short test just for us be ready on our unit test. First, of course Mr. K gave us enough time to answer the questions individually and after that Mr. K form us into groups to discuss to our fellow classmates & group mates our answers & how we get those answers. And this is the questions we had:

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You can put the slideshow on a full screen for a better viewing...

Sorry guys if i didn't explain all of it...
Well good luck on exam tomorrow and study hard...

The next scribe is............ JoeS

B.O.B.

Well it is time now for blogging on blogging. Probability is one of the hardest units in this course. At first I think that probability is fairly easy but it is just in the start. As we study more and more about probability the questions become more and more challenging. And sometimes I thought that I got the right answer but I am wrong. Because there are times that I miss understood the question. But the pre-test helps me to know more about probability.

Good luck to our unit test tomorrow & study hard.

BoB

Ah, yes another bob, another test (that rhymed... well sort of).
Probability was pretty simple to grasp in the beginning, but these past few days have shown more difficulty. Don't you hate how units seem alright at first then completely blow you out of the water? Well that's how this unit was although it was not as devastating as some others.
The problems we've encountered these past few days have been tricky because they've included things that we've learned in previous units like counting. Anywho, I think i've pretty much grasped the fundamentals of the unit, I just have to beware of these tricky questions when for example, it uses the choose formula. I also have to watch out when I draw those tree diagrams, sometimes I just read the wrong branch.
Good luck on the test everyone.

BOB

I must say that this unit is the hardest unit ever. This is the unit that I sucked the most. It was easy at first but when we started to use Combinatorics, I got very lost. That is my muddiest point. Oh well, good luck to everyone Hope we all do well on the exam..

^_^

Probability BOB

It's time for Blogging Blogging once again. When we first started the unit, it was pretty simple and easy to understand. I liked using the tree diagrams to solve problems and then applying equations that made questions easier to answer. What I had a hard time in this unit was applying the Counting Principles and Binomial Theorem to probability problems. For me it was difficult to figure out where to start the problems concerning those types of questions. I can do questions like 'getting exactly 3 out of 6' or something like that, but the other ones were more confusing.

Today's Slides: January 15

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Probability

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Tomorrow's scribe is Precious..

Today's Slides: January 14

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Probability Unit

Here are the slides to Friday's class when we did a workshop.

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We also discussed in class how to answer problems about probability on the provincial exam. We weren't sure if we should answer it as a percentage, decimal, or fraction if the question does not specify what we should leave our answer to. We agreed that we should leave our answer as a fraction because it gives the exact answer rather an approximate answer. Decimals give approximate answers to the nearest ten thousandths and percent answers give answers to the nearest tenths.
Next scribe is SharmaineD

Today's Slides: January 11

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Probability

Here's todays scribe post. I apologize for the late post.

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next scribe will be......................................................
...........................................................................
...........................................................................
...........................................................................
.........................GOAT!.....................................

Today's Slides: January 10

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Probability...con't

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I don't know who has been scribe yet, so I randomly chose someone. The next scribe will be...

SAMUS

Today's Slides: January 9

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Probability

Hi guys! Welcome back. Hopefully everyone enjoyed their holiday :] To start off the morning, Mr. K discussed our DEV projects. He also mentioned the pretty cool links along the right side that could help us study for our exam [y] We then started discussing and solving the following questions:



DEPENDENT PROBABILITY: Depends on the first step.
EX 1. A marble is drawn, not replaced and a second marble is drawn from the bag containing three red and three blue marbles. What is the probability that the second marble is blue?

INDEPENDENT PROBABILITY: Does not depend on the first step.
EX 1. A marble is drawn, replaced and a second marble is drawn from the bag containing three red and three blue marbles. What is the probability that the second marble is blue?

1a. A coin is flipped twice. Draw a tree diagram of the sample space and list the possibilities of each outcome.

b. A coin is flipped three times. Draw a tree diagram of the sample space and list the possibilities of each outcome.

In a family of three children, with boys and girls equally likely to be born, what is the probability that exactly two kids are girls?

oh and dont forget to accept your invitation to get access to the blog for your DEV project. afk kay now I have to go review for my english exam =S. the next scribe is ... JESSICCAI

Today's Slides: January 7

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