Maths+IBHL+Journal+(RK)

Monday 14/02/2011 First class after the semester break. Most students had emailed me their thoughts about the ideas discussed right before the break. The class discussed how to proceed and agreed on how to get going. The program for the next 2-3 weeks was agreed on and students volunteered to study selected topics in depth and prepare lessons accordingly.

Tuesday 15/02/2011 The experiment gets going. After a short look at the homework Can takes over the class and walks the class through the theory related to general discrete probability distributions. He does so very successfully and after a short wrap-up of a few details the class starts working on a set of related problems. Towards the end of the lesson the class takes five minutes to discuss the lesson and provide feedback to Can. There is a general agreement that Can was very successful in transferring his knowledge to his peers and his approach was very good. His use of a real world example as an introduction to the topic was clever and his style was "fluent and natural". Probably one more example could have been presented to the class for discussion before the problem solving session started, although this was not considered a major issue.

Well Done!

Friday 18/02/2011 Problem solving session. A few problems from Tuesdays class needed discussion. Otherwise the class seems to be on track. Tree rather difficult problems were assigned for formative assessment. I looked over the papers during the weekend and there is clear evidence that most students master the topic well. There are issues with notation, clarity and terminology, and these issues will be addressed at the beginning of Monday's class.

Monday 21/02/2011 Class starts with feedback on Friday's problem solving session. General issues are related to work shown, clarity, notation and terminology. Exercise 21 is discussed in details. Then Deylem takes over and introduces the Poisson Distribution to thje class. It is obvious that Deylem has done a lot of preparation and he manage to address the key issues through selected examples. I felt that a real life example with data given in tabular/graphical form would have been helpful, but the class felt that they learned well. Use of computer/display to display examples could have been used effectively. Students need to be more specific when giving feedback. Constructive feedback is very powerful.

Otherwise well done!

Tuesday 22/02/2011

A short talk about the logic behind the Poisson Distribution and its application in the real world. How do we identify data that can be modeled using the distribution? The rest of the class is devoted to problem solving. Students seem to have no trouble with the material;.

Friday 25/02/2011

The students work in groups of 2 and prepare questions for a review sheet on Discrete Distributions. This is the first time they try this, but it works fine. I collected the papers and wil work through the questions so I can provide feedback on the quality of the questions.

Monday 28/02/2011

Mistral introduces indefinite integration. Starts with a short review of differentiation that leads into integration as the reverse process. Using examples from kinematics and he prepared it ll in Mathematica. Well done!

The class needs to be more focused throughout the lesson. Too much time is wasted on "having fun".

Tuesday 01/03/2011

Mistral continues with definite integration. Again he uses known ideas from kinematics, which seems to ease the understanding. Mistral is more relaxed and fluent today and again he uses Mathematia effectively as an interactive presentation tool.

A general note to the whole class: More attention has to be paid to mathematical notation and terminology. The class need to see how this is communicated using the right notation and terminology. When solving examples on the board the focus seems to be the answer. It is also important to show how this is communicated properly.