Mr. McClendon’s Math Emporium

Classes have been officially canceled for Wednesday 2-27-08 for the Russell Center.

Our Test II on the tentative schedule will be pushed back to Wednesday 3-5-08. I need you to look thru sections 3.1 and 3.2 and try the examples that follow the homework. We will go over these sections on Monday 3-3-08. Test II will cover sections 2.3 -3.2.

The first of 2 notebook grades will be taken on Wednesday 3-5-08 (the night of test II) . I will be checking it for neat, legible notes, tabbed and in order. Also I will check to see if you have been completing your homework problems (these need to be neat and legible as well). If you have done both to a satisfactory level then you will get full credit. The rubric will be as follows:

Organized-10pts, Legible -10pts, Homework- 10pts.

Please have it organized in such a fashion that I or anyone could easily find your notes or homework for a specific section.

Last Monday we talked about the last part of section 2.5 and covered sections 2.6 and 2.7.  We really don’t have enough time in class to see very many examples of scatter plots.  So you need to make sure that you can do these problems on your calculator.  I will post a worksheet that I have given to a previous class that deals with scatter plots.  The first page is the basic diriections for inputing a scatter plot and finding the linear model or line of best fit.  The second page is just some excercises that you are welcome to try.

Scatter Plots On a TI-83

It is snowing right now here in Somerset and I am not for sure what the weather will be like tomorrow for class.

As of right now class is still a go.  Watch and listen to see it they officially announce night classes have been canceled.

Remember that quiz 3 is due 2-27-08.

Please keep up with all returned work and dedicate a special place for it in your notebook. This will help when it comes down to test time.

Attached is an Excel spreadsheet you can use to calculate your grade when you get your work returned. You have to input your grades into the gray cells. The yellow cells tell you your grade averages for each component of your grade: attendance, notebook, quizzes and tests. To get an overall grade (before the final) the gray boxes need to be filled in with something. I would use this tool to predict what I think I would make as a final grade. It will be really helpful at the end of the semester.

If you don’t have Excel or Microsoft Office you can download OpenOffice. This is an open-source(this means free and LEGAL) software that behaves just like M$ Office. If you just have to have M$ Office, I think that the somerset campus offers Office at a reduced rate for students.

Also if you are good at excel please feel free to modify the spreadsheet as you feel necessary. If you do please send me a copy so I can see how to update the spreadsheet for all to enjoy!

MT 150 GradeBook

Last night was a cold and wintry one! Thanks to all that braved the icy conditions. For those that couldn’t make it due to the weather or sickness, I gave back and we went over test one. As promised here are the statistics for the test: Average=74.3, Median=81, Mode=91, 1^st quartile=60, median=81, 3^rd quartile=91, and standard deviation of 20.4.

I think everyone knows what the average is but let’s look at the other statistical measures. The 1^st quartile of 60 means 25 % of the class scored below 60 and 75% scored above 60. The median states that 50% scored below 81 and 50% scored better than 81. The third quartile states that 25% of the class scored better than 91. The mode means that 91 was scored the most. The standard deviation shows how dispersed the data is away from the mean. It basically means that if our scores follow a bell shaped curve, around 68% of the class scored between 53.9 and 94.7.

After we went over our tests we looked at section 2.3, complex numbers. I think that most found these concepts straight forward and some what easy. For another look at complex numbers take a look at this website. It even has some of the same examples that we went over in class! There are many more sites that cover complex numbers. Just do a Google search for….. that’s right complex numbers!

What we didn’t get to talk about is using the complex conjugate. But the linked website covers this on page two. If anyone is having problems please post a comment and I will try to post a video to do problems like 45-50 on page 193 or problems 57 -62 on page 194.

I will see you guys on Wednesday 2-20-2008, no class on Monday 2-18-2008.

Happy Valentines Day!

Scott McClendon

Monday, 2-11-08, we will be having our first test.  It covers the sections on the syllabus up to and including 2.2.  I will hope to have the tests graded and returned by Wednesday 2-13-08.

preview-of-8-3.avi

I know that you are dying to do some geometry while your on a nice 4 day weekend! So you can try out this problem from the text book.

Welcome one and all to the math emporium. I hope to share with you the love of learing and the infinite possibilties of mathematics. Coming soon will be more info on me and my classes. As well as content for downloading including multimedia and text based documents.

Thanks,

Scott McClendon