Jon Oaks

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  • Justin Verlander’s One Hitter

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    Warning:  I don’t normally write about baseball.  But you can’t deny that being at Justin Verlander’s One Hitter game is something special. I have to admit that I went into this game not expecting much from the Detroit Tigers.  The Tigers should have been able to sweep the Twins and they didn’t.  Villarreal shouldn’t have…

  • My Search for a New Laptop

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    This week I bought a new laptop.  My search came down to the final three.  I ended up buying the Toshiba, but I thought it might be helpful to others to post the thoughts that went through my mind while picking between the three, as well as the specs on each of the machines from…

  • Teaching Control Charts

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    The other day in my statistics class, I talked about Control Charts.  I really wanted to drive home the point about the difference between individual runs charts and control charts.  So, I did a version of Deming’s Experiment with my students. First of all, it was very difficult to get 1,000 marbles on very short…

  • Computer Tips and Tricks

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    This past week I have had to do a few things on the computer that appear not to be common knowledge.  Here is a brief run-down of computer tips and tricks that I think might be useful to everyone: Microsoft Excel The University of Wisconsin-EauClaire has a wonderful summary of functions needed to use Excel…

  • Teaching the Runs Test for Randomness

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    The other day in my statistics class, I was teaching the runs test for randomness.  One of my students keeps on asking for an in-class activity, and it happened that I had an extra half-an-hour of class time to spare.  So, I adapted this famous teaching experiment for use in my own class. The set-up:…

  • Observations on Plotting Points in Pre-Algebra

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    Disclaimer:  Some of this might seem very, very obvious.  But sometimes it’s good to state the obvious, right? This semester I decided to teach plotting points differently than I have in the past. I started the lesson by handing each student a piece of graph paper and a ruler.  Yes, I know college students should probably…

  • Decimal Tiles

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    Every semester I always say that I want to do more to help my Pre-Algebra students understand the idea of ordering decimals from least to greatest.  The Decimal Tiles below are part of my attempt to do so.  To prepare this activity, I pre-cut about 10 sets of the tiles and had my students work…

  • Fractions Game for Math for Elementary Teachers

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    This is a game that I made specifically to show to my Math for Elementary Teachers class (I have been making a lot of stuff for the students in that class this semester which is why this blog has been sitting dormant).  However, I must say that I am very excited about this game that…

  • Finding the Standard Deviation from a Frequency Table

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    Even after telling my students how to find the Standard Deviation from a Frequency Table using the TI-84 several times in class, there was still some confusion.  So, I have broken down and made this 1-page handout.  Surprisingly, it was my first time making a handout like this. Finding the Standard Deviation from a Frequency Table

  • The Beef Taco Dilemma

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    This is a problem that I wrote for my statistics class.  The objectives for this problem are as follows: 1.  Compute percentages. 2.  Compute the arithmetic mean. 3.  Critically think about whether or not Joe had enough tacos to meet the ‘average’ demand.   What I found was some students had a hard time computing the percentages and some…