tutor room first day

April 8, 2011 in Math 151

two hours fly by like nothing… working exercises
with one student at a time is generally the best part
of the whole lifetime-math-teacher trip.

there’s quite a bit of homework for 151 students
to work out this week… and then to digitize.
putting the answers into the computer interface
can be expected to present *lots* of problems.

but this level of coding is easy enough for *me*,
so part of how i was able to help with
in a couple of instances was translating.
handwritten work leading to
might be entered as
(-I, -3*2^.5/2)U(-3*2^.5/2,0)U(0,3*2^.5/2)U(3*2^.5,I)
—which is anyway much more trouble to type
than the handwritten version is to write out.
the student bringing this up already had (essentially)
correct code; maybe this is easier than i think.
we’ll see how it goes i guess.

PS
first quiz.
my latest rant mentioned the reason
this was postponed from tuesday to thursday
(or from T to R as i’m likely to use in handwriting):
computer security snafu. so i got a hardcopy on W
and created two slight variants in .
got those run off in the printing office.

and i spread ’em around around the room
with the allotted 15 minutes left to go
(versions alpha and beta to alternate columns).
took the roll for the first time ever and copied
names into “seating chart” order in my notes;
an old habit. everybody handed in with time
to spare; good.

i haven’t graded ’em yet (more or less of course).
but i glanced at a few of the papers and saw
*lots* of right answers including those on
at least one “perfect” paper. looks like it’ll be
“so far, so good” when i’m passing ’em around.
here’s hoping.

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