Jon Oaks

Author: Jon Oaks

  • Math Poster Contest

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    Jon Oaks
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    Inspired by a poster of the Quadratic Formula that one of my students brought in today, I’m making it official!  Next term I’m going to have a Math Poster Contest between both of my classes at IADT, and I think that in addition to being a 100 point project, that the winner will receive a…

  • Math Manga

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    I was talking with some of my students this afternoon who asked me about my interest in Anime and Manga.  Of course, I immediately was intrigued by the possibility of combining Math and Manga and did a Google search (I’m really trying to avoid using Google as a verb these days) for “Math Manga”.  Well,…

  • Math Themed Haunted House

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    Jon Oaks
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    Earlier this semester (before I got sick for an extended period of two and a half weeks), I was really entergetic about trying out new ideas in the classroom.  Although the execution by the students could have been a little better, the students were engaged, which counts as a big deal to me.  If I…

  • Teaching Equations to Pre-Algebra Students

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    Jon Oaks
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    I got in a heated discussion the other day with a couple of colleagues about how to teach equation solving to pre-algebra students.  The equation x + (1/2) = (3/4) came to mind because generally I start a discussion of equations by showing examples of one-step equations.  However, this equation (or most equations with fractions…

  • Mathematics Origami

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    Jon Oaks
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    This morning with a stack of blank, unused paper sitting right next to me, I was thinking about some new projects that I might be able to assign my students for next semester.  Then it popped into my mind… Origami!  I think an assignment on origami would be especially interesting to my students in art…

  • Basic Technical Mathematics Resources

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    Jon Oaks
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    This website is full of resources that I accumulated while teaching MATH 100 (Basic Technical Mathematics) at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, MI during the Winter 2010 semester.  The textbook we used was Elementary Technical Mathematics, 9th Edition by Ewen and Nelson (Thompson-Brooks/Cole; ISBN: 0-495-01274-2).  I hope you find them useful. http://bit.ly/math100

  • Happy Grading, Everyone!

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    Jon Oaks
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    For anyone in teaching, grading is probably one of the most time consuming things to be done, especially if the class sizes are large, which they inevitably are due to shrinking budget sizes, etc.  So, to celebrate all of the grading that will be done by teachers in the next few weeks with finals rolling…

  • Using Wolfram | Alpha Effectively

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    When I was helping some of my students review for their final exam tonight, I was reminded about Wolfram|Alpha, and how to effectively use it in the classroom.  One of my students was trying a factoring problem, and he all of a sudden started typing it into his computer.  I asked him what he was…

  • Thoughts on Teaching Statistics

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    Jon Oaks
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    There was a tweet in my feed this morning that simply said: "Now that's how you present statistics http://pop.is/24bos".  I'm glad that I took this tweet seriously, because the next 5 minutes or so of watching Hans Rosling talk about the "Joy of Stats" was a real treat.  I can only imagine what some of these…

  • Pre-Algebra and Algebra Resources

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    Jon Oaks
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    A few months ago I had students in my Basic College Math class create a game about fractions.  One student created “Fraction Bingo”.  I decided to search the web to see if there were printable bingo sheets available.  Well, there were, along with some other activities that I found on the same website from Holt,…