Patterning the World: Connecting Mathematics and Science – Winter 2014

Here are the materials associated with the Exam 1 Reflection and Revision:

• Guidelines
• Revision Version of the exam

The Week 6 Reading announced in Thursday’s Wrap was:

• Precalculus: Ch. 5.2, 5.3, 5.5
• Physics: Ch. 3.3. Please add in Ch. 6.1 which connects with Precalculus Ch. 5.2

You can find the week 5 Reflection form here. The prompts (taken from the CCSS Standards for Mathematical Practice) handed out in Thursday’s Wrap were:

• Reason abstractly and quantitatively: Students work to make sense of quantities and their relationships in problem situations. They improve their ability to bring two complementary abilities to bear on problems involving quantitative relationships. One is the ability to decontextualize – to abstract a given situation and represent it symbolically and manipulate the representing symbols as if they have a life of their own, without necessarily attending to those concrete or abstract objects that the symbols refer to. The other is the ability to contextualize, to pause as needed during the manipulation process in order to probe into the meaning of the symbols and operations involved. Quantitative reasoning entails habits of: creating a coherent representation of the problem at hand; considering the units involved; attending to the meaning of quantities, not just how to compute them; and knowing and flexibly using different properties of operations and objects.
• Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them: Students work to explain to themselves the meanings of problems and look for entry points to their solutions. They analyze givens, constraints, relationships, and goals. They make conjectures about the form and meaning of the solution and plan a solution pathway rather than simply jumping into a solution attempt. They consider analogous problems, and try special cases and simpler forms of the original problem in order to gain insight into its solution. They monitor and evaluate their progress and change course if necessary. They can use concrete objects or pictures as well as abstractions and analogies to make sense of a problem and to start developing an approach to solving it. They can explain correspondences between equations, verbal descriptions, tables, and graphs or draw diagrams of important features and relationships, graph data, and search for regularity or trends. They check their answers to problems using a different method, and they continually ask themselves, “Does this make sense?” They can understand the approaches of others to solving complex problems and identify correspondences between different approaches.

You can find the Week 4 Physics Problem Set solutions posted at the Week 4 Calendar page. When you click on the link, you may be prompted to log-in. Use your standard my.evergreen.edu log-in information.

The midterm exam will be on Wednesday February 5 beginning promptly at 9 am in Sem 2 E2105. Students who are late to the exam may not be allowed to take it. The exam is designed to be completed in 1.5 hours.

You may bring your calculator, writing implements, personally prepared 3inch x 5inch notecard, ruler, and protractor.

The scope of the exam includes all the material covered in the program up till the day of the exam.

You can find the Week 5 Calendar page using the link above.

• Monday’s Lecture begins promptly at 8:45 in Lecture Hall 4. Come prepared with questions from Problem Sets and Quizzes that you are having difficulty with.
• Bring your ruler and protractor with you to Monday’s Lecture/Seminar (Sem 2 E2105, 10:15 am or 1 pm) and Physics Lab (Lab 1 2046, 10 am or 1 pm).
• Monday’s Physics Lab will continue and extend Physics Lab 6 from Week 4. Look over that lab in preparation, and practice the relevant calculations.
• Tuesday begins promptly at 8:30 with a Quiz on Week 4 material.
• Tuesday’s Math Lab will have you explore some of the open ended questions you’re encountered before (review your notes) as well as some new investigations.
• Tuesday’s Open Workshop in Sem 2 E2105 has been extended from 1:00 – 3:00 to give you more time for exam preparation.
• Wednesday’s EXAM begins promptly at 9 am in Sem 2 E2105. See post above for more info.
• Thursday’s mandatory class meeting begins promptly at 9:30 am in Sem 2 A2105; bring your working materials.

Several of you have asked about doing the vector math in the physics problem set for this week. If you complete the math/physics part of Math Lab 4 (linked at the Week 4 Calendar page), you will find some online tools to help with this.

You can find the Week 2 Physics Problem Set solutions posted at the Week 3 Calendar page. When you click on the link, you may be prompted to log-in. Use your standard my.evergreen.edu log-in information.

• The Week 4 Calendar page is available with Reading Assignments and reading tips;  check back for links to Problem Sets.
• In the Week 4 Calendar page, you’ll see a redesigned layout; we hope this new format is more usable (we welcome your feedback).
• Week 4 is the first full week with our new schedule:
  • The Week 3 Problem Set is due online Sat. Jan. 25 by 11:59 pm;
  • The Week 3 Reflection is due online Sun. Jan. 26 by noon;
  • All Reading Assignments should be completed by (and brought with you in a format you can annotate to) Monday’s Lecture & Lecture/Seminar;
  • Bring your flash cards to Monday’s Lecture;
  • Physics Lecture is from 8:45 – 9:45 in Lecture Hall 4;
  • Morning Physics Lab is 10:00 – noon in Lab 1 2046 and morning Lecture/Seminar is 10:15 – noon in Sem 2 E2105; Afternoon Physics Lab is 1:00 – 3:00 in Lab 1 2046 and afternoon Lecture/Seminar is 1:00 – 2:45 in Sem 2 E2105;
  • The Quiz (on Week 3 Material) will begin promptly at 8:30 am on Tuesday in the CAL.
• For some of you, the grace period on your WebAssign account has run out. You will need to complete your purchase of WebAssign in order to submit your assignments. If you need assistance, contact Krishna immediately.
• Remember that to view/use the Discussion Forums and the Resource Postings area, you will need to log in to this blog itself; use the Log In link (second under Meta in the navigation bar to the right).

For Monday January 27, read

• Ch 3.2 in the precalculus text
• Ch 3.1, 3.2, and 3.4 in the physics text
• We’ve provided some Reading Tips for this week’s reading assignment. We hope this supports you in preparing for Monday’s lecture and lecture/seminar.