New beginnings

Moving on: one week to go. A new beginning is just 'round the corner.

Knoxville's 2006 MathFest brought me a few almost sleepless nights and a boatload of new ideas for 365. Many of these came courtesy of my best friend and partner in pedagogical crime to whom, in keeping with the rule of anonymity promised before, I shall refer as Griselda. (At least until she reads this and tells me to cut it the hell out.)

Griselda's teaching an inquiry-based learning (IBL) version of her school's proofs class, her confidence and skills bolstered by what sounded like a marvelous workshop out in CA a few weeks back. She's got some great ideas, and I had a chance to look over the first 42 problems she's designed for her students to work through in semi-Moore-method fashion. (Someday when I'll less tired maybe I'll explain to the reading public exactly what the Moore method is, but meanwhile those who are truly intrigued can follow this link to learn Moore about it.)

One change I'm thinking of making to my plans is to adjust the grading of the "two-part" quizzes, in order to make at least some of the credit given for such a quiz "gratuitous," perhaps letting the team portion of the quiz be extra credit to be added to the individual score for each team member.

We'll see. My goal for the coming couple of days is to hammer out the dings in the project descriptions, to get the website up and running, and to write the syllabus.

Oh yeah: Griselda and I plan to put together an IBL session at the MAA Sectional meeting at Georgia Southern next spring. Stay tuned!