Notes form Last Meeting

Our meeting Saturday was lots of fun for me, and we had some great discussion about the efficacy of group quizzes and two-part tests. If you would like information about the group quizzes, or the IF-ATs (immediate feedback assessment technique, http://www.epsteineducation.com/home/about/), please email me.  (Also, someone left a coffee travel mug – you can pick it up at J.D.’s [you can use the contact form on this blog and we'll put you in touch with J.D.]

Our next meeting is November 19 at Pima Community College West Campus. It will be in our new physics lab. Chien-Wei Han and his colleague Jorge will lead us in a workshop on Arduinos in the classroom. You can buy an Arduino on Amazon for $25 or so, or a kit for $80 or so, and Chien-Wei will have some for us to use if you don’t want to buy or bring your own.

We are thinking of subjects for future meetings. Some suggestions are : using online physics sites; improving your students’ AP scores;  group dynamics; CASTLE workshop; using Mathematica in your class; Video physics labs; using google docs etc.; making a solar oven; using VPython with your students. You are welcome to send more suggestions.

I hope members of our group will volunteer for some of these topics, or maybe you have a topic you are dying to share with the group. I’m trying to focus more on professional development for our group, and would love to hear your ideas.

Fritz’s books:

The Now, by Robert Muller, author of Physics for Future Presidents)  It’s about time. And the creation of time.

Our Mathematical Universe, by Tegmark

Computer Age Statistical Inference: Algorithms, Evidence, and Data Science (Institute of Mathematical Statistics Monographs) by Bradley Ephron and Trevor Hastie

The Master Algorithm, by Pedro Domingos

These last two books are about Artificial Intelligence, a subject about which Fritz knows a lot. In fact, he might give a presentation on it.

Other news:

There is a Math Teacher’s Circle. They meet once a month or so to investigate an interesting math topic. If you would like to sign up, go to https://goo.gl/forms/QvUrwBu7hgxIy7aE2.  More information at http://ime.math.arizona.edu/ttc/.

Thanks,

Karie