Sorry, it slipped my mind that I was supposed to do this.

I will be beginning my graduate career (in math) next Fall at Vanderbilt University (in Nashville, TN). I will be working in an area called 'universal algebra,' which is two abstractions beyond the classical algebra that you would have learned in high school. Over the summer, the first years will be invited for a month to get adjusted to Nashville and gradute life. I am very excited for this new adventure in my life!

I haven't really done much this week, but all that I really have left to do is write up my lesson. I would also like to help Meng and Nathan on the lab section of the project. I have found a pretty good demonstration to begin the lesson that hopefully the students will be able to visualize. This weekend, I will try to write everything up that I have ready, so that I can see what there is left to do.

I have notes on the derivation of the rate laws, which will be the main focus of the lesson. I have an idea of how I think the lesson could be introduced, but I have still to find specific demonstrations that I feel as appropriate and interesting. In the next week, I will write up the actual lesson, so that Nathan and Meng can use it in writing the lab component of this project. I will spend any remaining time thinking about how best to explain rate laws to students as well as talking to a science ed grad student I know about pedagogy.

Here it is, for you viewing pleasure!

That science, or class of sciences, which treats of the exact relations existing between quantities or magnitudes, and of the methods by which, in accordance with these relations, quantities sought are deducible from other quantities known or supposed; the science of spatial and quantitative relations.

Last spring, I took part in an Indiana college-level math contest. They competition was done in teams, and there were three of us on my team. One of the other guys and I were friends, but we had just met the third guy the day before. The third guy was on of those people who thinks he knows everything, even if he doesn't. This caused some troubles when we started disagreeing about how to do some of the problems. We ended up just letting him do whatever he wanted on the problems we gave him to do since we didn't have time to look over them anyway.

I was thinking that the Science Ed people and I could work on making a lesson geared to teaching students more about the philosophy of science (or math). Of course, many science labs implicitly utilize the methodology of science, but it would be nice for students to seriously contemplate the philosophical issues behind science (and mathematics, which is worse off since it does not even have the labs). I find that scientists never bother to consider (and may even trivialize) the philosophy or education of their fields, which might explain why many of them are such bad teachers.

I found a funny polar bear picture and added it to the second slide. Choose whichever slideshow you like more.

Here is a PowerPoint for the Snow Removal group.

I could not remember everyone's names, so be sure to add that.

Also, I liked the idea of a youtube video as an opener, but if you don't, just delete that slide.