Tuesday, February 17, 2009

29 minutes, give or take

Ugh...I slept like crap last night.

Just a few hours before my date with the Teaching Company. I'll be happy to have this damned thing behind me.

After a few practice runs, I've got it down to about 29 minutes, give or take a minute or two, which is smack dab in the right range, so I'm pleased. I'm going to do one more run-through of the last half (modular arithmetic and the RSA cryptosystem) in a few minutes, and then call it good.

A word about classwork: I'm in the middle of my reading of the Calc I students' final drafts of their derivative "paperlets," and as one might expect there's a broad range of quality. Some are adequate, and others are positively fantastic. The best are distinguished not only by the completeness of their treatment and the correctness of their computations and statements, but also by the composition of their exposition: the ideal narrative offers smooth transitions from topic to topic that highlight rather than downplay the interrelation of those topics.

I hope to finish grading those over breakfast this morning.

Then it's off to the races.

Nearly there, my friends, nearly there!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Although I know nothing about math I do know that if I was to learn it, it would be by you. I envy any student who has you for a professor. Now when you do it nationwide, what an opportunity for this country. Send me a CD when you go public. Beth