 | Hi, and welcome to Mr. Quinn's Class dot com. That's me in the picture. The bald one.I am a teacher at Noble High School in North Berwick,
Maine. I'm teaching sophomore algebra and geometry as well as a section of statistics this year.This page is intended to be a central place for access to information that might
be useful to students and parents, with news, assignments, and other class-related content. Links are to the right, news is below. Enjoy! |
29 October - 2 November
Saturday, October 27, 2007
This is the second week containing parent-teacher conferences, and I have a project due in one of my grad classes and a midterm in the other. It's going to be a rough couple of days.
In algebra, having multiplied everything there is to multiply quite successfully, we'll turn this week to the topic of un-multiplying, known more widely as factoring. This is a good time, and as usual we'll want to be concerned not just with mastering the methods but also with developing a sensibility for which method is appropriate to which case.
Statistics accidentally created its own normal curve last week (funny how often that happens) and we'll be using it along with the notion of normalizing and z-scores to turn questions about amounts into questions about % of area under different parts of the curve. First, however, we need to do some more analysis to our survey data.
Students of the Week!
Last week, our most impressive performances were turned in by Steven Langelier, who turned in his second basically perfect assessment in a row, and Tony Bonnin, who has made some real strides toward success in the last week and a half. Good work, and keep it up.
posted by henry |
12:34 PM|
22 - 25 October 2007
posted by henry |
12:15 PM|
15 - 19 October
Monday, October 15, 2007
This week will be interrupted by the PSAT, so we'll sort of be working around a bit of an odd schedule all week.
Algebra will turn to exponent rules in a build-up to polynomial manipulation. This is the basis for the next month of work, so let's stay focused.
Stats will be working on visual depictions of their data -- with a turn to quantitative descriptions of quantitative data on Wednesday.
posted by henry |
8:03 AM|
9 - 12 October
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
It's the week of Noble's open house, but I'm not going to make it -- I have class myself, as part of my master's degree program in statistics. I'm sorry about this, but I'm working very hard to balance these two parts of my life, I'm becoming a better mathematician, and I look forward to seeing everyone at parent-teacher conferences in just a few days.
It's also a short week, and bit of a weird one. Algebra will be spending the bulk of its time doing a crash course in geometry and then two prep sections for next week's PSAT. Statistics will be banging our heads against NeoOffice, trying to get it to make some graphs. To any parents visiting the site for the first time: if you're looking for something for which to advocate, getting MS Office on the school laptops will help get relevant technology into your kids' hands.
Using NeoOffice
New Feature: Students of the Week!
This week, both Jeff Sprague and Jess Archer did amazing work -- really seriously great work in and out of class, and the result was a pair of perfect assessments. I'm not saying that you should always do what I tell you, but sometimes, if you do, it works out in your favor. Nice job.
posted by henry |
4:36 PM|
1 - 5 October
Algebra is turning this week to solving systems of equations. In a lot of ways, this is one of the most important conceptual moments in all of high school mathematics. Before now, 'solving' took place in the context of a special (single-variable) case, and it's hard to visualize what a solution 'set' looks like when it only has one element. Systems really give a window into the more general nature of what we do when we solve, and provide the first real opportunity to test a lot of the abstraction that we've been practicing.
Stats will continue readying our data, and also have my favorite discussion of the year, "Why do people make such horrible graphs?".
posted by henry |
4:27 PM|
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