Jon Oaks

Author: Jon Oaks

  • Why Can’t We Do This for Mathematics???

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    This video was introduced to me via the Online Teaching and Learning class that I'm taking this semester.  Enjoy!

  • Supplemental Instruction

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    Last semester in the Contemporary Topics In Higher Education class that I took, my group wrote a paper on Supplemental Instruction (SI).  The future of SI is definitely toward using Video SI in the private sector.  But for now, one of the biggest struggles with SI is how we can make it seem interesting enough…

  • Mathematics in the News

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    Sometimes as an instructor I struggle to get students to see the relevance of mathematics.  Although mathematics isn't in the news nearly as often as I think it should be, here are links to a few websites that do document real-time mathematics news, along with a website with some interesting videos that might help to…

  • Mindmaps

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    This semester I'm taking a class on Online Teaching and Learning (IST 670) at Oakland University.  It's a new class, so the instructor is developing the syllabus around our interests.  Wednesday was our first class.  During the discussion we talked about creating a database in MOODLE so that students could organize their thoughts and then…

  • Using Jing in the On-line Classroom

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    I just started facilitating my first on-line course ever this week.  I say facilitate, because I really don't believe that I'm actually teaching the students anything in the traditional sense.  In fact, they are actually learning through reading the textbook, discussion forums on ANGEL, and MathZone.  However, since this is my first experience with MathZone,…

  • Math VIDEO Highlights

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    Highlights of (mostly) student work turned into a video.  Personally, I can’t stop watching it.  But we’ll see how the students feel about it tomorrow morning on the first day of class.  I’m looking forward to sharing this with them. animoto_video.mp4 Watch on Posterous

  • The Central Limit Theorem

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    I know, I know… I haven’t been posting a lot of statistics materials on here, but this is one actually turned out to be pretty sweet.  Here’s how I did it:  On the top dotplot each student plotted their month of birth, along with the month of birth for three other people such as their…

  • Using Post-It Notes in the Classroom

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    Honestly, I wasn't sure how college students would respond to writing their answer to a problem on a Post-It Note and then sticking it to the white board, but I thought that I would give it a whirl.  As it turned out, most of the students told me that they enjoyed the activity because it…

  • Happy New Year!

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    I've really been trying to avoid it, but at this point I don't think I can help it anymore.  I think that the TED Talk that was featured over at The Edge of Learning sums it up well why I don't like to give away many of my New Year's Resolutions.  But I want to tell…

  • MATH Movie Trailers

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    Happy New Year!  First of all, if you’re not following along with Teaching College Math on Twitter, I seriously think that you’re missing out on a lot of good ideas.  Like the one I’m about to suggest to you.  A recent twitter challenge stated:  “Challenge: Make a one-minute trailer (like in the movies) for Algebra that makes…