Day: May 20, 2008

Faculty Bio

Today I was asked to fill out a little “faculty bio” of myself. In my school, students list their top 3 choices for advisers each year, and by some mysterious process that probably involves a Sorting Hat, the students get portioned out into homerooms. The students make their choices after reading the various faculty bios.

Here’s what I submitted.

  1. Department: Math
  2. Classes you will be teaching next year: Algebra II/Trigonometry, Calculus, Multivariable Calculus
  3. Two of my Favorite books: Drawing Theories Apart: The Dispersion of Feynman Diagrams in Postwar Physics (David Kaiser), The Secret History (Donna Tartt).
  4. Last book read: Dead Souls (Gogol)
  5. Favorite Movie: Igby Goes Down
  6. Favorite thing to do with your homeroom: Relax and prepare for the day. Put large ships in small bottles. Thumb my nose at those who don’t love “Veronica Mars.” Force my advisees to do really hard math problems. I mean, really, really hard.
They probably think I’m joking.

Some Places To Visit On The Interweb

I’m a blog junkie. I now read blogs daily, and I want to point out my favorite posts. Partly as an archive for myself, partly to share with others some great things out there that I’ve been struck by.

So without further ado, here I go:

  1. On Nailing/Blowing Assessment (dy/dan)
  2. End-o-Year Calculus Projects (Math Teacher Mambo)
  3. The Function Machine Game (Let’s Play Math)
  4. Teaching the Long Tail (Math Stories)
  5. Math Teacher Bingo (3 Standard Deviations To The Left)
  6. Competing the Square (Coffee and Graph Paper)
  7. Math & Art / Big Numbers (The Exponential Curve)
  8. Teflon Teacher and How Much Do They Change (Certain Uncertainty)
  9. We Know You’re Blogging (On The Tenure Track)
  10. Exceedingly Lame Final Question and Counterexamples (The Number Warrior)
  11. Quitting Teaching College (An Educator’s Blog)
  12. Classroom Management vs. Discipline (Catching Sparrows)
  13. A Motivational Experiment: Reflections on a Mohawk (I Want To Teach Forever)
  14. Help Wanted: Active Summer Learning With Technology (Dangerously Irrelevant)
Lucky 14. With that, I’m out.