Sorry for this being late, BPA consumed my weekend.
This week in math was refreshing. Although I was behind on some quizzes, I understood the new content really well. I feel like I generally understand things better when it is just one set formula you plug things into. I think many people would agree with that but, I know that this type of section doesn't happen often. The shell method was a little shaky for me at first, but after completing the work sheet I thought I understood it well. It was also really beneficial we went over a bunch of examples in class today. I think I am prepared for the quiz we take tomorrow and look forward to finishing this chapter before spring break. Math is a lot more fun when you are caught up and understand what is going on the first day we are assigned problems. When we first learned the solids of revolution and washer methods, I was in major hurry up with some homework assignments from the previous week and the quiz. This caused me to fall behind a little bit, but with the help of my group and the class discussions, I understood the content very well. These type of things allowed me to catch up on the quizzes I was behind on. My procrastination is decreasing week by week even though this upcoming week will be a tough one before spring break. I felt like my participation was good in class this week. Filling out a bracket was cool until I realized how poorly we were doing when watching games this weekend. The chaos of basketball and bpa is over for now. I hope you have a good spring break. I’m sure teachers are looking forward to it, just as much as students.
Sorry for this being late, BPA consumed my weekend.
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Only a few weeks remain in this trimester and then the school year is 2/3 over! This just happened to be a week that zoomed on by for me. The pistons trip in the middle was nice. Not so nice that I had to take the quiz a day early. That was a little tough. I struggle with this whole u-substitution concept. Not that I don't understand it. It's just that I struggle at applying it to its full affect to the problems. Trying to figure out what to use for "u" is the hardest part for me. Once I get that, then I am golden. Anyways, in this week that was shortened by sickness, I gained a great understanding of slope fields. Those were a nice little break from evaluating definite and indefinite integrals. Although, I thought it was weird that when we learned about the slope field section, the majority of problems from that assignment didn't require you to use them. One thing I did notice about slope fields was that once the slope became a large number, it was hard to tell the difference between a slope of 5 or 10. They begin to look very similar. Also it is hard to draw a line for some of the complex equations. I guess that;s probably why they didn't have us use them too much for the assignments because they aren't the most accurate. My participation was really good in class this week. I was able to converse in all the CCC's when I was there and then drawing the slope field on the white board was kind of cool. The bigger the graph is, the easier i think it is to read the slope field. I hope you had a great valentine’s day and I look forward to being back in school healthy on Monday!
Weeks are flying by now... Well, maybe not this one. Our first full week of school was packed with mathematics. We are back onto a more complicated U-substitution than before. The main part I am struggling with in this new chapter is trying to figure out what to use as the u value. Once I am able to figure that out, everything else goes smoothly. I guess I just have to apply myself more and put some more thought into it. It was nice to finish up the test early in the week. It should bring a close to chapter 5. I think I did well on the non-calculator portion, but I did question what approach to take when tackling the problem that asked me to find g values from the graph of a function f(x). I think I was able to figure it out in the end. It seemed like the majority of the questions I got wrong on multiple choice were just careless mistakes. That is kind of frustrating, but also assuring knowing that I understand the main concepts. I will have to continue working hard for this next chapter I think. Once again, I think the required CCC's is a great idea and has helped me kick my procrastination out the door. My participation in class was good this week. I was able to work on problems and pitch ideas when we went over CCC’s rather than just absorbing what others were saying. U-substitution is a method for finding anti-derivatives. I tried looking up who discovered this method and there wasn’t much information about it. I guess that makes it kind of mysterious. That could be a good or bad thing. I like knowing that someone invented it rather than the thought going through my mind that says teachers just thought of it to give their students more work. I am sure that isn’t the case, but hey, the vague history draws some questions…
This was a short week of mathematics, well school in general I guess. I have to admit I enjoyed the time off and the reality of returning to math class wasn't as rough as I had expected. We learned the Trapezoidal Rule on the day we returned. I found this to be quite easy. It was a lot of just understanding the correct terms to plug into the equation and then just typing it in the calculator from there. I was able to finish the whole assignment in class. I think it also helped that I didn't have Grace or Max there that day. I think I get more done when I am sitting alone and have my mind focused just on that. The rest of the week was much needed review. I was shaky on a lot of the stuff we covered this chapter. That is because I didn't spend the necessary time on each assignment like I should have. After completing the review, I understand everything pretty well and believe I will be able to do well on the test on Monday. I talked last week about not understanding the fundamental theorem of calculus very well. After this week of review, I am now able to complete those problems with the understanding that it relates derivatives to integrals. My participation was good in class this week. It might not have been the best in expressing my opinion for shirt designs to the class or answering and asking questions, but it was good in the sense that I was focused for the class periods and was able to get a lot of work done. That makes it a lot easier on me at home. It means less homework time, which means a happier, less stressed Mitch Ridley. Having to fill out the CCC's each night has required me to stay caught up and I like that a lot. I have been highly motivated when it comes to schoolwork lately and I really hope that it never ends.
This week we learned about the fundamental theorem of calculus, mean value theorem, definite integrals and anti-derivatives, and using Riemann sums.. I thought that the fundamental theorem of calculus and solving definite integrals using anti-derivatives were the hardest to grasp when we first began. I still feel a little shaky on them. I realized I wasn't as confident on them as I thought was after we took the AP style quiz. The wording messed with me I think and I wasn't able to determine what i needed to do at first to figure it out. I think i got most of them in the end. I was most worried about the short answer question... I participated well in class this week and I believe that by having the CCC;s count as a grade, I will have my homework done constantly on a timely manner. I think that was a good idea. I read a little bit about the fundamental theorem of calculus and found out Newton and Leibniz discovered this connection between integration and differentiation. This connection helped kick start the beginning of a scientific revolution for the next 200 years. It is still regarded as one of the most important computational discovery in math history… I found that to be pretty interesting. I guess it does pay off to read up on the material we are covering once in a while. I hope that this marking period goes as smoothly as the last one. I will continue to try my best to understand each concept so that there are no conceptual grey areas for me while filling out these CCC’s. I’m looking forward to deciding on a t-shirt design for our class. I’d say we have some pretty creative minds amongst our class. Have a nice weekend. I’ll see you Monday.
And… Another week of AP Calculus goes by. This week was all about reviewing things we have learned and testing ourselves on them. I really wish we would've been able to finish the test today, rather than having to wait for break to end. I have a feeling I may forget a couple things... This week I found it tricky to remember the things we learned at the start of chapter 4. Having to dig back through notes and older sections did help me learn the material better though. I felt that I prepared well for the test and I'm happy with my first two quiz scores of this new trimester. It's crazy how much easier it is to comprehend new concepts when you're actually completing assignments in a timely manner. The content on this test brought all of the earlier concepts together and made you apply a bunch of different things in a single question. I believe problems may be getting more difficult but as students we are becoming much more capable. I thought the most difficult questions on the test were the on the back page. I think I was able to figure them out, but I don’t know, something felt wrong. This week my participation in class was pretty good. I completed the review assignment on Tuesday night, so it freed up a lot of class time for me on Wednesday. I am looking forward to seeing how that quiz ended up for me. I think this optimization activity with the cans will really help me understand optimization better. I hope to finish it early on during break, so I am able to live homework free for the remainder of it. Anyway, I hope to keep these great streaks of weeks going. I hope you have a great break Cresswell! I'll see you when we come back. Merry Christmas!
Another Friday rolls by and a new blog post comes with it. This week in AP Calc we learned about linearization and related rates. I thought that this week went pretty smoothly. I finished homework in a timely manner, participate in the confidence conversations, and was able to write this blog. I didn't forget like last week! The linearization stuff tripped me up a little bit on the homework, mainly because I was tired the whole class time and didn't pay good enough attention, but I was able to figure it out as I worked through problem after problem on the homework. I hope I am able to continue to understand the content well for this test on Monday. The related rates were quite tricky, but once I was able to figure out the right formula for the problem and I was able to follow the steps, it went smoothly as well. Procrastination hasn't been too much of a problem for me since the start of this new tri. In all my classes I am doing pretty well and that is being displayed with my grades. Math comes a lot easier when you apply yourself. I think I should be pretty well prepared for this test on Monday. Also, I did indeed bring in cans for the can drive. I wasn't able to bring them into this class hour, but they came in at lunch and were added to our classroom total. I brought in 20 cans. I hope that I am still allowed to get the extra credit to bring up my grade from that last blog post. On another note, derivatives continue to play a huge role in all the things we are learning. It's crazy to think that I found derivatives confusing the first week we did them. Looking forward to a solid tri of calc! It is Thursday and I am sitting here trying to decide what approach to take about talking about this week. It was well interesting to say the least. A different week for me for sure. I did not procrastinate and was able to finish each homework assignment in a timely manner. I guess that was something new. The thing is, that since I missed class for an orthodontist appointment last week on the first day of this chapter, I wasn't able to completely understand some of the key points and that set me back as we began to build upon them. I sit here understanding it the best that I have all week, but that is purely because after taking the quiz some stuff seemed to click. I began to worry again after completion though. I know I need to do well on this quiz. I thought most of it went smoothly, but there were a couple of problems like 7,9,10 that I wasn't so confident about. My participation was pretty good in class this week since I had the homework completed. It's too bad it took me a total of 10 weeks of school to figure out the key to doing well. One thing I struggled on a little bit was graphing the function without using a calculator. I will brush up on that over the weekend so I am prepared for the rest of the quiz Monday. The activity we did a couple weeks ago with graphing derivatives and second derivatives and recording observations helped me quite a bit on this quiz. I was able to remember some of the key concepts. I like this new process I have going with being able to write my blog in English class now. It makes my life quite a bit easier. Another thing I noticed was that the weebly app for iphones has been fixed! There is no longer a deletion error! Now, these mastery forms need to save my butt.
It’s Friday again… you know what that means. Times for another enjoyable math blog. I’m sure you enjoy reading this as much as I like writing it. This week started with a test! A Monday test… but no, I am not complaining. I am actually quite happy it was moved back. Although, even with it pushed back, I am not all that confident about my grade on it. It will probably end up with another “average” grade for me. Now, after watching this “Kid President” video in English class, I realize average isn’t what I want to be. I want to be able to excel at everything I do. That may mean working harder than I currently am or have worked in the past. That is just what I am going to do with this new chapter we started this week. I am going to apply myself and strive to do the best I can on each assignment. That way when it comes to quiz or test time, I am ready and not scrambling last minute to finish work. No more procrastinating. No more excuses. I will achieve this goal. That being said… I am off to a slow start after missing Tuesday for my orthodontist appointment. I may need a better explanation on some things that were taught that day. I don’t really understand extrema or critical points. That was covered on that day I missed, so if I get that cleared up things should go smoothly. My participation was good in class this week. I finished the homework assignments on time, so I was able to participate in the CCC discussions. I understood 4.2 really well and was able to complete almost all of the homework in class. If I keep up this type of production things should go pretty well for the remainder of this six weeks.
The new marking period has begun and I am as ready for it as I can be. I am ready for this fresh start and this week was a good example of it. I got my homework done in a timely manner and was able to participate in all the discussions. I can honestly say I am proud of myself this week. I hope I can carry this throughout the whole marking period. I am sure my grade would reflect. I am also beginning to understand these new concepts and I'm sure that will also improve in the upcoming week. The problems we were able to complete on the anti derivative worksheet went really smoothly for me and came quite easy. To find the anti derivative, you add one to the exponent and then divide the leading coefficient by that number. In some cases it may seem more complicated, like in the homework, but if you follow those general rules you should be in good shape when coming upon the answer. If I can keep up this streak of successful days next week, I should be in good shape. The bad thing is the feeling I am having right now. I feel like this kind of stuff is going to become a whole lot harder and I better be ready for it… Then again hopefully that feeling is wrong ;). I wouldn’t mind continuing with problems just like these ones. Now that soccer is over I will have more time to spend on school work. As long as the procrastination problems of mine, which I have spoken of in previous posts, stay away then it should be a good six weeks. One last thing, my brother told me to tell you he said hello but I forget during just about every class time. I guess I have too much math on my mind…
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