DO do DOOO doooo... DOOdooDOOdoodooooooo (sorry)
Anyway, this is the final term of my undergrad career and it is gonna be awesome
CIS 110: introduction to computing
MATH 457: discrete dynamical systems
Those are my only two real classes
CIS: looks to be a total cakewalk, but it will be very useful in terms of website design and troubleshooting my mother's computer.
Math: I have heard amazing things about this professor (Prof. Ostrik), that he is brilliant and a great teacher. I'll believe that when I see it. He is incredibly russian, and I am gonna need a couple more days to get on top of it. I already figured out his version of "um" is "ahno" which I figured out is his lexicalized version of "I dunno"
For example
"And let's set the value of x to... i dunno... 4"
in Ostrikese
"Ant lesset value of esstoo ahno four"
As I said, going to take some getting used to, but I'll get there.
As for what the class is about, I have not the foggiest idea. I know it has to do with iterations and fractals to some degree (Mandelbrot set) and other cool stuff. The reasons I am in this class:
1. It is one of the only classes that I can take to complete my major, and it won out over the other two options because
1a. Fourier II would have kicked my ass
1b. Complex II would have been doable but
2. My mathmates are not in those classes, and all three of us are in 457, so 457 it is. Without those three, all four of us would have failed Fourier I
Other classes:
Tap III: gonna be awesome as usual
Juggling II: skipped juggling I cuz, let's be serious, I don't need that. My goals:
5 ball cascade (normal juggling pattern with crossing balls rather than the circle)
3 ball every outside catches (put your hands on your thighs, the point your fingers out and palm up - then catch a ball like that)
3 ball back crosses (throws behind the back)
Drumming II: african drumming, with some salsa, tango, other beats from around the world. Hand drumming
Contact Improv: improvisation through bodily contact with one's environment, be it a wall, a floor, a broom, or a giant puddle of dancers
Partnering: a modern dance class, give you one guess what we do in this class
And that is my entire term. That's it. As I said, piece of cake.
I'm very excited to say that I am moving later this week, just a mile, but my life is going to get way easier and way more fun after this move. More news to come.
LOVE YOU ALL
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Monday, April 2, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
They Changed It
In one of my favorite movies, Dustin Hoffman, who plays the producer of a theatre, says to Johnny Depp, who plays J.M. Barrie, author and playwright of Peter Pan,
Charles Frohman: You know what happened, James, they changed it.
J.M. Barrie: They changed what?
Charles Frohman: The critics, they made it important... hm, what's it called? What's it called?
J.M. Barrie: Play.
Charles Frohman: Play.
And that really struck a chord with me. Taking something that we all love and changing it into something that it shouldn't be.
I had that realization about something in my life today that I love. Math class. Somewhere in the past 4 years of my life they changed it. I've seen it changed before, but not in my classroom.
I saw it 10 years ago, when I was deciding which middle school I liked best. I went to Vail, a school with a GATE program that looked great, and all was awesome until I went to the math class and saw kids who didn't understand, and didn't ask questions. They were actually afraid to ask questions, and I wondered why that was. Now I know, because they did it to my classroom.
Somewhere in the past three years, they took math class, and made it about knowing the answers. It used to be about finding the answers, about learning how other people found answers. But now it seems to be about having the answers. And when you speak up in class, and say "I'm sorry, I don't understand a word of what you just wrote on the board" or even "wait, what was that?" you get them ost incredulous looks from some students and the teacher who them procedes to explain to you like you are five just how clear it is that this definition makes it. To which I reply "well, it isn't clear because I don't get it" and then they give you a roundabout answer, you figure it out in the book yourself and we forget the whole thing happened.
When did questions become a bad thing? Cuz the way I remember it, and correct me if I'm wrong about this one, Mrs. Kolesikova, but a question was an opportunity the way I remembered it. An opportunity for the teacher to teach someone something, an opportunity for another student to get some clarity on something, and an opportunity for that student to get one of those ever elusive "ah-HA" moments that all mathematicians long for. A question was an indication that your job was not done yet, and that this student wanted to see this the way you saw it, and was brave enough to admit that he or she could not see it yet. Of course he or she can't, that is why they are in your class - to learn about what you have to teach.
So.
When I ask you to go over the first problem of the homework that I just spent the last 15 minutes talking to everyone around me about how nobody had a fucking clue what was going on in that problem, and you tell me "oh, it's a very naïve solution, I'll show you" (that is his word for "simple," I figured out) and then writes the solution and then basically scolds me for not understanding it. I believe his exact words were "we went over this in week three, so you have no excuse for not knowing this." By the way, I checked with the other kids in my class - nobody had seen that before, including the grad student we went to get help from. When you act like a question is a chore that you should put the least amount of effort into, you remember this, Professor: if I don't understand something, it is because you have not done your job in properly explaining something, and I am allowing you the opportunity to fix that.
I noticed something: this is the norm in math classes here...
What happened? Why did they change it?
Charles Frohman: You know what happened, James, they changed it.
J.M. Barrie: They changed what?
Charles Frohman: The critics, they made it important... hm, what's it called? What's it called?
J.M. Barrie: Play.
Charles Frohman: Play.
And that really struck a chord with me. Taking something that we all love and changing it into something that it shouldn't be.
I had that realization about something in my life today that I love. Math class. Somewhere in the past 4 years of my life they changed it. I've seen it changed before, but not in my classroom.
I saw it 10 years ago, when I was deciding which middle school I liked best. I went to Vail, a school with a GATE program that looked great, and all was awesome until I went to the math class and saw kids who didn't understand, and didn't ask questions. They were actually afraid to ask questions, and I wondered why that was. Now I know, because they did it to my classroom.
Somewhere in the past three years, they took math class, and made it about knowing the answers. It used to be about finding the answers, about learning how other people found answers. But now it seems to be about having the answers. And when you speak up in class, and say "I'm sorry, I don't understand a word of what you just wrote on the board" or even "wait, what was that?" you get them ost incredulous looks from some students and the teacher who them procedes to explain to you like you are five just how clear it is that this definition makes it. To which I reply "well, it isn't clear because I don't get it" and then they give you a roundabout answer, you figure it out in the book yourself and we forget the whole thing happened.
When did questions become a bad thing? Cuz the way I remember it, and correct me if I'm wrong about this one, Mrs. Kolesikova, but a question was an opportunity the way I remembered it. An opportunity for the teacher to teach someone something, an opportunity for another student to get some clarity on something, and an opportunity for that student to get one of those ever elusive "ah-HA" moments that all mathematicians long for. A question was an indication that your job was not done yet, and that this student wanted to see this the way you saw it, and was brave enough to admit that he or she could not see it yet. Of course he or she can't, that is why they are in your class - to learn about what you have to teach.
So.
When I ask you to go over the first problem of the homework that I just spent the last 15 minutes talking to everyone around me about how nobody had a fucking clue what was going on in that problem, and you tell me "oh, it's a very naïve solution, I'll show you" (that is his word for "simple," I figured out) and then writes the solution and then basically scolds me for not understanding it. I believe his exact words were "we went over this in week three, so you have no excuse for not knowing this." By the way, I checked with the other kids in my class - nobody had seen that before, including the grad student we went to get help from. When you act like a question is a chore that you should put the least amount of effort into, you remember this, Professor: if I don't understand something, it is because you have not done your job in properly explaining something, and I am allowing you the opportunity to fix that.
I noticed something: this is the norm in math classes here...
What happened? Why did they change it?
Saturday, October 1, 2011
First Week Of Senior Year
So this is my third year of college at the University of Oregon, and it is also my final year. I am a senior. And as I told Janessa last night "I know right? It feels like I just f**king got here!"
So I'm going to tell you about my first week, and what I expect from this year.
I started this term out with 18 credits, now I have 15, and those credits lost turned this term from one I dreaded to one I am actually looking forward to. One class gone and everything is fixed. That class is math 307.
Math 307 is part of the mathematics department's new bridge requirement for all majors and minors. The problem was that I already took classes that this was a prereq for, so of course I hadn't taken it before. But now it was a prerequisite for almost every upper division class there is. And it is a proof class.
For those of you who don't remember, I took a proof class last year, Math 315, and I got out of it with a D, the only D my major allows. I was in a study group with 3 other people, two of them failed the course, and the other one got a C. We are all brilliant, this class is just outrageously hard. In effect, I was terrified to take another proof class that was a required class. Terrified and pissed off that they added this new requirement and that I had to restructure my major because of it, as well as take two more math classes than I was expecting to. So I show up on the first day, and I sit down next to a girl who dropped out of 315 after the first week because she just said "pft, not this term I am not going to do this" and I never saw her again. Anyway, she was asking me why I was in the class, since I took 315 already (307 is now a prereq for 315 as well) and since I had taken 315 already, why was I in the class. I responded that I didn't get a C or higher, so I cannot use my 315 credit as a prereq, and then I bitched about the addition of the bridge requirement - she responded that it wasn't retroactive - since I had declared my major before the addition of the bridge, it didn't apply to me. To make a very long a tense story very short and relaxing, she was right. I dropped 307 that afternoon, put the notebook in my box of notebooks completely empty except the back which reads "Math 307 - NOT!"
So once I dropped that class, I was free to look at what else I was taking and enjoy it. So here is the traditional first week of term class rundown where I give my opinions about them.
Lets go in order of the week
1. Linguistics 411, Phonetics.
In this class we will be taking a closer look at how sounds are made with our vocal tracts, and how to analyze the sounds with computer equpiment - we are going to read spectrographs of soundwaves. I will be able to record you saying something and look at the waveform and figure out what you said (ish) by the end of this term. The teacher seems very direct, but she is really nice and enjoys input from the class - it isn't a lecture. She asks a lot of questions of us and tries to get us to figure stuff out. Much respect for her. I think the class is going to be very informative and maybe even a little fun - which is good, because it is one of the three more classes I have to take for my linguistics minor (the other two being phonology, the study of the theory of sounds as they exist in language, but not in actual speech - much more problem solving and puzzles there, and functional syntax I, which I suppose studys functional syntax in english, but I can't really be sure).
2. Math 420: Ordinary Differential Equations
This is the first class in a three part series (420, 421, 422) on DiffEq. The second one is Partial Differential Equations and Fourier Analysis, which is going to be cool for me, because PDEs are what stumped my dad in college. I think that is cool because the only way the human race will advance is if each generation is smarter than the last, so surpassing my ancestors in terms of my chosen field is very exciting as an idea - like the whole point of education is becoming very close to being fulfilled, think about that for a minute.
Anyway, the first three weeks will be a review of Math 256 (the blog on that class can be found at the link) so that'll be nice, and the rest will be new stuff that I can't tell you about yet, because I don't know it yet. But the class should be intersting and engaging. The professor is named Yattselev, and I'm not sure where he is from, but he has a sense of humor, he really knows his shit and he is very clear about what he expects from us, which is great. Also, he is completely gorgeous, which is a total plus.
3. Philosophy 110, Human Nature
This class looks very interesting at face value, but I think I'm going to hate it. I am going to hate it for one reason - the professor is teaching philosophy history of human nature, starting with the greeks, and he is teaching it as if they were right. I assume he will do this for every single one. It is usually presented as "hey, this is what the greeks thought - what do you guys make of that?" but there was no room for discussion or argument or presenting different views. Even in a 300 person class, you can take a couple hands every few minutes to present some viewpoints. As Peter said, we are going to spend a lot of time in our heads saying "that's wrong, that's wrong..."
The prof is great at explaining things though, and I think the writing assignments will be thought provoking. Basically, the main part of the learning in this class will be done in my mind, rather than in the class - oh well.
4. African Dance I
I took african I last term as well, and you have to take at least two terms of it before you can go on to african II, so this will be same level of difficulty, with some different dances (because it is a different teacher). The cool part of this class is going to be the people. Some of my best dancer friends are in this class (I'd say my two favorite dancer friends actually) and the other kids who I don't know seem very energetic and open and very into having a good time. Lots of people there to experiment with something new, and those are the best kids to have in a level I dance class. We learned Babaye and some of Lamba (Lamba is one of the big three dances we are learning the term, the other two being Kou Kou and Nzobi) which were great, Babayo I call it that because that is the first line of the song we sing while we dance
Babayo (bah-bah-yoh)
Baba aye (bah-bah ah-yey)
Baba lorisha (bah-bah loreesha)
Baba ok (bah-bah oh-kay)
Very simple dance, but a good way to get people going.
Lamba is much more complicated, requires a lot o coordination and has a lot of capacity for improvisation within the structure, and LOTS of capacity for booty shakin', which I am a fan of.
5. African Drumming
After I took african dance last year, and started drumming this summer again (I was jamming out on a djembe, a west african hardwood drum, with my friend on a guitar and we had a blast) I decided I wanted to take a class to learn how to read music for a hand drum. I can read for drum set, but hand drumming is done by oral tradition mainly, but there is a notation, but it isn't on a staff. Class is a bit large for my taste for something like drumming, but there it is. It is going to be a fantastic time, and it is right after african, which is great.
6. Tap III
Because I could drop Math 307 (1pm, MTWF) I would then be able to take this class (1pm TR) and that makes me happier than a... than a... umm... *insert awesome analogy here*. Anyway, big class for tap III, 8 people, varied levels, but much of the same stuff. Going to be a fantastic time! The cool thing about this year is that I have been in tap III for 3 terms, so I'll take it non credit the next two terms most likely, and I am getting a piece of board to I can tap at home and drive my room mates insane. This is not official, but I am gonna say it is likely, that at the end of the year for Spring Loft, I will be able to tap in Jean's tap piece! Small group, highly complicated and well choreographed, and very very fun.
So, I have a lot of stuff to look forward to this year, a lot of fun, and a lot of work. Last year, lets go kick some butt. Allons-y! Also, I have been a total Doctor Who fan...
The other September entries:
Faerieworlds Harvest 2011
Earthdance Northwest
So I'm going to tell you about my first week, and what I expect from this year.
I started this term out with 18 credits, now I have 15, and those credits lost turned this term from one I dreaded to one I am actually looking forward to. One class gone and everything is fixed. That class is math 307.
Math 307 is part of the mathematics department's new bridge requirement for all majors and minors. The problem was that I already took classes that this was a prereq for, so of course I hadn't taken it before. But now it was a prerequisite for almost every upper division class there is. And it is a proof class.
For those of you who don't remember, I took a proof class last year, Math 315, and I got out of it with a D, the only D my major allows. I was in a study group with 3 other people, two of them failed the course, and the other one got a C. We are all brilliant, this class is just outrageously hard. In effect, I was terrified to take another proof class that was a required class. Terrified and pissed off that they added this new requirement and that I had to restructure my major because of it, as well as take two more math classes than I was expecting to. So I show up on the first day, and I sit down next to a girl who dropped out of 315 after the first week because she just said "pft, not this term I am not going to do this" and I never saw her again. Anyway, she was asking me why I was in the class, since I took 315 already (307 is now a prereq for 315 as well) and since I had taken 315 already, why was I in the class. I responded that I didn't get a C or higher, so I cannot use my 315 credit as a prereq, and then I bitched about the addition of the bridge requirement - she responded that it wasn't retroactive - since I had declared my major before the addition of the bridge, it didn't apply to me. To make a very long a tense story very short and relaxing, she was right. I dropped 307 that afternoon, put the notebook in my box of notebooks completely empty except the back which reads "Math 307 - NOT!"
So once I dropped that class, I was free to look at what else I was taking and enjoy it. So here is the traditional first week of term class rundown where I give my opinions about them.
Lets go in order of the week
1. Linguistics 411, Phonetics.
In this class we will be taking a closer look at how sounds are made with our vocal tracts, and how to analyze the sounds with computer equpiment - we are going to read spectrographs of soundwaves. I will be able to record you saying something and look at the waveform and figure out what you said (ish) by the end of this term. The teacher seems very direct, but she is really nice and enjoys input from the class - it isn't a lecture. She asks a lot of questions of us and tries to get us to figure stuff out. Much respect for her. I think the class is going to be very informative and maybe even a little fun - which is good, because it is one of the three more classes I have to take for my linguistics minor (the other two being phonology, the study of the theory of sounds as they exist in language, but not in actual speech - much more problem solving and puzzles there, and functional syntax I, which I suppose studys functional syntax in english, but I can't really be sure).
2. Math 420: Ordinary Differential Equations
This is the first class in a three part series (420, 421, 422) on DiffEq. The second one is Partial Differential Equations and Fourier Analysis, which is going to be cool for me, because PDEs are what stumped my dad in college. I think that is cool because the only way the human race will advance is if each generation is smarter than the last, so surpassing my ancestors in terms of my chosen field is very exciting as an idea - like the whole point of education is becoming very close to being fulfilled, think about that for a minute.
Anyway, the first three weeks will be a review of Math 256 (the blog on that class can be found at the link) so that'll be nice, and the rest will be new stuff that I can't tell you about yet, because I don't know it yet. But the class should be intersting and engaging. The professor is named Yattselev, and I'm not sure where he is from, but he has a sense of humor, he really knows his shit and he is very clear about what he expects from us, which is great. Also, he is completely gorgeous, which is a total plus.
3. Philosophy 110, Human Nature
This class looks very interesting at face value, but I think I'm going to hate it. I am going to hate it for one reason - the professor is teaching philosophy history of human nature, starting with the greeks, and he is teaching it as if they were right. I assume he will do this for every single one. It is usually presented as "hey, this is what the greeks thought - what do you guys make of that?" but there was no room for discussion or argument or presenting different views. Even in a 300 person class, you can take a couple hands every few minutes to present some viewpoints. As Peter said, we are going to spend a lot of time in our heads saying "that's wrong, that's wrong..."
The prof is great at explaining things though, and I think the writing assignments will be thought provoking. Basically, the main part of the learning in this class will be done in my mind, rather than in the class - oh well.
4. African Dance I
I took african I last term as well, and you have to take at least two terms of it before you can go on to african II, so this will be same level of difficulty, with some different dances (because it is a different teacher). The cool part of this class is going to be the people. Some of my best dancer friends are in this class (I'd say my two favorite dancer friends actually) and the other kids who I don't know seem very energetic and open and very into having a good time. Lots of people there to experiment with something new, and those are the best kids to have in a level I dance class. We learned Babaye and some of Lamba (Lamba is one of the big three dances we are learning the term, the other two being Kou Kou and Nzobi) which were great, Babayo I call it that because that is the first line of the song we sing while we dance
Babayo (bah-bah-yoh)
Baba aye (bah-bah ah-yey)
Baba lorisha (bah-bah loreesha)
Baba ok (bah-bah oh-kay)
Very simple dance, but a good way to get people going.
Lamba is much more complicated, requires a lot o coordination and has a lot of capacity for improvisation within the structure, and LOTS of capacity for booty shakin', which I am a fan of.
5. African Drumming
After I took african dance last year, and started drumming this summer again (I was jamming out on a djembe, a west african hardwood drum, with my friend on a guitar and we had a blast) I decided I wanted to take a class to learn how to read music for a hand drum. I can read for drum set, but hand drumming is done by oral tradition mainly, but there is a notation, but it isn't on a staff. Class is a bit large for my taste for something like drumming, but there it is. It is going to be a fantastic time, and it is right after african, which is great.
6. Tap III
Because I could drop Math 307 (1pm, MTWF) I would then be able to take this class (1pm TR) and that makes me happier than a... than a... umm... *insert awesome analogy here*. Anyway, big class for tap III, 8 people, varied levels, but much of the same stuff. Going to be a fantastic time! The cool thing about this year is that I have been in tap III for 3 terms, so I'll take it non credit the next two terms most likely, and I am getting a piece of board to I can tap at home and drive my room mates insane. This is not official, but I am gonna say it is likely, that at the end of the year for Spring Loft, I will be able to tap in Jean's tap piece! Small group, highly complicated and well choreographed, and very very fun.
So, I have a lot of stuff to look forward to this year, a lot of fun, and a lot of work. Last year, lets go kick some butt. Allons-y! Also, I have been a total Doctor Who fan...
The other September entries:
Faerieworlds Harvest 2011
Earthdance Northwest
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