Sunday, January 29, 2006
New Class
I have a new class, a small group of 8th graders. These students are having no trouble at all with their regular math class, so twice a week I take them off for something completely different. It is a double challenge, they have to keep up with the regular class with only 3 days a week attendance and I try to keep them interested in the material I have.
We are working on the mathematics of computers; binary numbers and operations, sets and logical operations, Boolean algebra, state and Turing machines. What I like about this material is that there is very little prerequisite. To learn calculus you need a fair amount of supporting material, algebra geometry and trigonometry. Most of the mathematics needed to understand a computer can be learned from scratch.
We are also doing reports on colleges; each student is doing some research on a school and reporting back with findings. It was a bit of a tough sell at first but they are warming to the idea. Your dreams can't come true if you don't have any dreams….
We are working on the mathematics of computers; binary numbers and operations, sets and logical operations, Boolean algebra, state and Turing machines. What I like about this material is that there is very little prerequisite. To learn calculus you need a fair amount of supporting material, algebra geometry and trigonometry. Most of the mathematics needed to understand a computer can be learned from scratch.
We are also doing reports on colleges; each student is doing some research on a school and reporting back with findings. It was a bit of a tough sell at first but they are warming to the idea. Your dreams can't come true if you don't have any dreams….
// posted by Old Math @ 6:45 PM 
