This week... hmm... what is there to say about it. I slacked off. I didn't live up to my expectations of myself. Homework is now piled up and I am in deep doo doo. This week I learned more about chain rule, and then built product rule and quotient rule upon that concept. I am not the best at applying all of these concepts at once. I get confused in what order to use them in. Incorporating derivatives of sine and cosine functions also just messed with my mind. This was probably because of my lack of focus or drive, which allowed those blank assignments to pile up. This did not help my participation in class discussions. I was unable to participate much because I didn't have much input to add in. I didn't have much input to put in because I was unfamiliar with the material. This will probably show when I receive the quiz back. I was very shaky on a lot of things on the quiz. It looks like next week I will pay for my slacking off. I will probably be buried in homework and I apologize to the future Mitch Ridley. If I could go back and do this week over, I would definitely not allow myself to fall behind. Once the next chapter starts, I don't want to repeat my actions of this chapter. One thing I thought I was good at was using the product rule. I know it is probably the easiest one of the rules we learned, but I think I feel pretty confident in it, unless there is a twist of something I am doing wrong. Implicit Differentiation was introduced late in the week and I was confident in it when I was taking notes. As soon as I got to the homework....my mind went blank and I couldn't remember the correct way to do it. I think I was able to pull it out of nowhere on the quiz, but still I need to brush up and work out the kinks for the future. Below is an example of a problem we did on our groups white board one of the days.
Another week of math completed, but so many more to go. This week, math seemed to go by slowly. Day after day we added onto the concepts we learned about the day before. I began to understand the chain rule, product rule, and quotient rule so much better throughout this week because we are using them so much in every activity or assignment. That means this mastery activity should be a breeze. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is great that the test got moved back. I was not quite ready to face that beast. This week was a week of catching up for me. The procrastination had caught up to me and I was in a hole that I needed to work my way out of. I will NOT let that happen again. You can quote me on that if you would like, but this week I was definitely a part of #procrastinationNATION and I am not proud of it. My eyes have been opened to the consequences of procrastinating and I will not let myself go through that type of thing again. That being said, I learned quite a bit this week and polished up other things! The only thing I am kind of shaky on is derivatives of exponentials and logarithms. The assignment started out really rough for me, but since I had it done when it was supposed to be, I was able to get my question answered in our group break offs. I thought I participated pretty well in learning this week. I was more involved in the CCC’s once I had caught up. My biggest accomplishment was learning the right time to use the chain rule in each problem. I know that sounds like a small step, but I believe it will improve my test score tremendously. Another thing I noticed as I type this blog is that mine for the last two weeks were never published… hmmm. I will publish them as soon as I finish typing this. I am not quite sure how to attach my mastery video, so maybe you will show me on monday??
This week was a step back for me mentally. I went back to my old ways of procrastination. However, I did start the week out strong. I understood Tuesday's material about rate of change and finished the homework that night. Wednesday is when it started to go downhill. I know that would be kind of unexpected because all we had was the worksheet. The first 4 problems on the worksheet over the 4 step process went pretty smoothly and I was able to follow the steps rather well, but the last 4 were a different story. I think they got progressively harder and i did not completely understand how to graph the derivative and tangent line free hand. It seemed like there was a lot of room for human error to me. I also did not understand how to find the equation of the tangent line at a specific point. I do have the answers down, but it was purely from following along what was written on the board. That is one time I wish i would've spoken up and increased my classroom participation. I participate well in going over homework assignments with my group and what not, but when it comes to raising my hand and asking the question I have with the whole class listening, I tend to back down and wait until a later time to ask you one on one. The derivative activity on Thursday went surprisingly well. My table worked well together and got a pretty good representation of the derivative without typing it into the calculator. This activity helped me understand my earlier question ^. This week will be majorly important come quizzing time next week. This upcoming quiz will decide if I stay in the A, A- range or if I drop below it for this six weeks.
PS- Sorry this is probably coming to you late. My phone had an issue and I just remembered I still needed to post it officially. Thanks for your understanding. Ahhh, another week of school over. We are approaching winter break day by day. That’s the next thing I will be looking forward to. Anyway, this week was a smooth week when it comes to mathematics. Other than that it was hectic. Early on in the week we studied for the test on Tuesday. I thought I understood the content on the test very well. I'm not quite sure what I missed on it, but throughout the week I began to understand continuity and discontinuity better. The concept of removable discontinuity was shaky for me at the start of the week but now I know that it means there is a definite point that works for the equation, but it is not necessarily the limit. These ideas will help with the next segment of derivatives because a line must be continuous at the point. Lab 3 along with the speed and time activity really helped me in understanding the beginnings of this new section. It gave me good blocks to start building on. I thought my participation was good this week. It wasn't the best overall when we were working in groups, but I can improve on that. I thought my participation was best when I was having trouble I wasn't afraid to ask questions. I still need to work on improving my mental math. I think I type things in my calculator too much. I need to start working things out algebraically in order to be prepared for the written part of future tests or quizzes. It was nice to have a little break from homework every night by doing activities in class. I hope this week goes more smoothly than last week. I think it will without the stress of spirit week and homecoming. In other news, good job MCing on Friday. I was quite impressed!
This week went well for me. The procrastination I talked about in previous posts was non-existent this week. That always leads to a good solid week of work and understanding that work. The thing I had the most trouble with was discontinuity. I didn’t really understand the complete concept of it until we started doing the review assignment Friday. Even after that I am still kind of confused about how to find the points of discontinuity in some examples. I think that will get cleared up as I finish the review assignment tonight. One of the concepts I understood really well was limits. Those came easier to me and I am actually kind of surprised I got minus 2 points on the quiz. I can’t help but wonder what I got marked down for. I guess I will have to wait and see. This week was one of my most productive weeks in school. I think I am officially back in the school mindset. I really enjoyed the ted talk this week. It was pretty cool. This was our first week of actual sections so it’s hard to say how it connected with the review assignments we did in previous weeks. Although one connection I made is the use of asymptotes in the concept of limits. My participation was a lot better this week because I actually had the assignments done on the days we talked about them. That allowed me to respond to your online surveys and get help on the questions I was shaky on. I need to work on finding asymptotes without a calculator and solving equations involving trigonometry. This week mattered because without these skills calculus will be a heck of a lot harder in the near future. I hope to keep working against my procrastination problems in order to have successful weeks like this one.
(Below is a picture of a proven limits equation involving the trigonometry things I said I needed to work on) This week we expanded on the concept of limits. These help show end behavior of graphs. I believe this was taught because we will be using limits frequently throughout the year in calculus. I understood the lab we did really well. I really enjoyed working with groups for these labs. For the parts I didn't understand, I felt as if my questions were answered well by you or my table partners. I really struggled with numbers 21-26 on pg. 66. I thought those were the hardest questions concerning limits. The table number work time helped a little bit but I am still worried if I would be able to recognize what steps to take on those if a different one was given to me. I think I participated well in the learning because whenever I struggled with something,I was able to ask you for an explanation. In most classes I am afraid to ask or just too stubborn in wanting to solve it myself to ask. One thing I learned that I didn't know at all previously is that an asymptote isn't always a line that is never crossed. It can be crossed like the example, the limit as x approaches positive infinite of f(x). I haven't began the homework that was assigned over the weekend but with the notes I took in class today I'm not too worried about it. This seems to be the class that I am able to focus best in during the day. Another thing I think I will be kind of shaky with is remembering the little tricks like the sin(X) / x trick in the different limits, but I think the more I work with them, the better it will be. I hope as the year goes on to continue doing well and progressing.
This week we reviewed over content that we should know in order to have a head start on grasping AP Calculus. We needed this big review assignment in order to refocus our heads in math mode and get us thinking again. I struggled remembering some aspects of the assignment but overall I was impressed with what I did remember. I really struggled with the problems including decomposition of functions and my domain and range skills were a little bit rusty to say the least. I feel as if I participated very well in the learning this week. My table worked together really well to solve problem after problem together in the packet and I think it will be nice to have them to work with in future assignments. I think I need to finish this packet and brush up on the things I was struggling with before I am completely prepared for this assessment. Elaborating more on what I need to work on: my handwriting after the first week, my procrastination problems, and my time management skills. I believe I can improve on all these pretty easily in the future weeks. I guess I hit the first week of school drag already... I found the shape problems, the graphing the bicycle time and distance problems, and the finding the real solutions problems to be the easiest... or the ones I remembered best. I learned that for the shapes you can just find the base area and multiply it by the height instead of having to break the shape into different parts. It turned out to be a much faster process. This week was definitely the introductory week and is preparing us for the harder AP CALC, non-review, stuff later. I hope this will become a successful year of math for me, grade wise and learning wise.
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