Wrap-Up of the Fall 2012 Conference Season

By Jon OaksJan 31, 2013
Note: This post got lost in e-land and is just now making its way to the Internet. As the end of this semester approaches, I have decided that I need to take a few moments to just get some ideas and thoughts out of my mind from the conferences that I have attended this fall.  Here is a short wrap-up of some of the events that I have attended this semester. This semester I presented at the Michigan Center for Student Success Summit.  My biggest takeaway from this conference is the fact that other colleges are way ahead of my…
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My Experience with Spotify Premium

By Jon OaksDec 23, 2012
I was skeptical at first.  My previous experience with Pandora wasn’t the best.  I couldn’t listen to any song that I wanted to, but I could create an artist radio, where without fail, 5 songs in I would be turning off the music because Pandora would be suggesting something absolutely awful.  And why not just skip over the song?  Well, with Pandora you only get so many skips per day.  Then Google Music came along for a while.  I could listen to any song I wanted to, but only once.  That was a weird phase that Google had.  I’m glad…
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Traverse City Beach Bums Baseball

By Jon OaksAug 09, 2012
While at the MCTM conference in Traverse City, MI, I went to 3-game series at Wuerfel Park between the Traverse City Beach Bums and the Windy City Thunderbolts.  Before this summer, I hadn’t even heard of the Traverse City Beach Bums.  I know, it may seem a little strange, but who really follows the Frontier League anyway? The first night at the park, I arrived about 1-hour early because I didn’t know how crowded the parking lot would be or how long I would have to wait at the Will Call window in order to pick up my tickets.  It…
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Indian Mathematicians Library Fair

By Jon OaksAug 05, 2012
Since I am new at my college, I was told that it is expected that all new faculty members are on a committee.  Apparently I found out that message a little too late because when I asked if there were any committees that were still open to join, there were none except for the college’s Multicultural Initiatives committee. I didn’t know much about this committee except for what I had heard at department meetings.  We have some faculty in the math department who are all about integrating multicultural initiatives and service learning into the classroom and we have other faculty…
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MCTM Conference Wrap-Up and Evaluation

By Jon OaksAug 05, 2012
This year I went to the Michigan Council of Teachers of Mathematics (MCTM) Summer Conference and Institute in Traverse City, MI.  It was my first year attending the statewide conference and my first time ever driving to Traverse City. Overall, the conference was a good and very profitable experience.  I learned a lot from the presenters.  The sessions that I attended include:  ·         Why People Trust Statistics  ·         Free Algebra II Moodle Course  ·         Parametrics: One of the calculator’s most robust and lesser used modes I also presented during two sessions: ·         Teaching Important Concepts through the Use of Games…
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The Search for a New Learning Management System

By Jon OaksAug 05, 2012
We use ANGEL at my college and I’m not happy about it.  I bet you’re not happy with your Learning Management System (LMS), either.   I don’t need to give you my list of grievances, but I’m going to anyway: ·         When I log-in to ANGEL, there’s a ‘What’s New’ panel that shows you what is new (e.g., any new posts by students) since the last time you logged in.  This is nice, except they won’t appear in the list the next time you log-in.  What ANGEL really needs is a ‘What’s unread’ panel that lists everything that is still unread,…
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My Experience at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History

By Jon OaksAug 04, 2012
Note:  This was a trip that I field trip that I took my Math For Education students on during the Winter 2012 semester.  The original reason for the visit is that we were promised that there would be a display about African American Mathematicians at the museum.  However, that display was not there.  My students were asked to leave the group, just as I was. On Saturday, March 24, 2012, I attended the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.  I didn’t know what to expect before I attended the museum.  The only African American History that I can…
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Supplemental Instruction Update

By Jon OaksAug 04, 2012
This semester I piloted supplemental instruction (SI) sessions for my 2 sections of statistics.  If you’re not familiar with the idea of SI, it is essentially 1 free hour of free help for the students before every class.  There was an SI leader assigned to each of my classes that sat in on the class and then assisted the students during the sessions.  The leaders answered any questions that the students had and encouraged the students to work together to solve the problems. The results of the sessions were staggering and I have summarized them in the infographic below.  The…
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My New Interest: Detroit Tigers Baseball

By Jon OaksAug 04, 2012
I want to take a minute to expand upon my current obsession with Detroit Tigers Baseball.  From as far as I can remember, I never really had a hobby or anything that I would do regularly for leisure.  Immediately after high school, I went to college.  Every summer during college I came home and took classes at the local community college.  Immediately after college, I went to graduate school.  During graduate school, I took summer classes and worked during the summer.  After graduate school, I started working part-time at six different colleges simultaneously.  Yes, one semester I taught 38 credits…
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