Off-Schedule...

Today isn't normally a day that I go to the high school, but my schedule's a bit off; I was out of town at a conference and re-arranged when I do what for this week. Friday I'll be back to the normal schedule. Today was also kind of an unusual day at Ypsilanti High School. They had MME testing going on, so there were no regular bells, no announcements, and a fair number of students weren't in class. Mr. Ambrose used the class time to review, let students work independently, and for students to complete make-up work like quizzes that they'd missed. Some of them used the time wisely, but others just sat and talked. I'm not sure whether they were caught up, or just didn't feel like concentrating on their work. As much as it's a good idea to use your school time to work, I know sometimes you just can't focus well. I did learn something interesting from one young woman; she mentioned that her mother had once studied engineering, but didn't complete her engineering degree. She said her mom has considered going back to school. I really hope she does give it serious thought - not only would it set a great example for her daughter (who is a very bright and ambitious young woman), but it would be a great thing to do for her own sake. I know a lot of people say you can't go back to school, but that's just not true. I worked for 13 years before quitting to start on my Ph.D., and while being an older student presents special challenges, I bring a different perspective which I think can be helpful. Diversity isn't just racial and ethnic, although that is important - it's everything that makes a person who they are and influences how they think. That includes race, ethnicity, gender, age, and life experiences - and such a long list of things that if I typed them all, this post would be HIDEOUSLY long and no one would ever finish reading it.

In Ms. Colwell's algebra class, they were working on linear regression and on sequences. She's really trying to get them to think - for instance, they had a set of points, figured out the slope and intercept of the equation for the best-fit line, and then she asked them, "Is a line a good fit for these points? Why or why not?" In this case, the correlation was around 0.18, and after they discussed it, most of the students understood that it really isn't a good fit. I explained how, when you work with data, it's important to look at whether the model you're trying to use (in this case, a line) really matches. You can find the "best fit", but it might still be pretty bad if the points are all over the map - or if you try to fit a line to a quadratic relationship. When they started working with sequences, I mentioned that I've had homework (in an optimization class) that involves sequences; often, when you're using an iterative method to find a solution, you start with some value and use a specified rule to find the next value in the sequence, then the next, until you're done. Obviously, the sequences they study are far simpler than what a graduate student has to use - simple ones like 3, 6, 9, 12, ... but I was able to let them know that this, too, actually has some real-world purpose beyond just filling a section of the algebra book.