Category Archives: Curriculum

Specifics about subject matter.

Make the Course Yours – A Response to AI in the Classroom

Posted on December 1, 2023 by jrh794

Response to the ubiquity of generative AI on college campuses must include rearticulation of both institutional and personal purpose.  Justin Wolpers’ excellent webinar laid out the problem in stark terms.  Nearly all college students use GPT for some of their … Continue reading →

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ChatGPT Can Answer Calculus Essay Questions

Posted on February 14, 2023 by jrh794

In a previous post, I gave an example of calculus essay questions that could be used to separate testing for understanding (The “why” of the steps) from testing for skills (The “how” of the steps). Here we will see what … Continue reading →

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Precalculus Essay Test

Posted on June 25, 2019 by jrh794

As something to do while waiting for new advisees at our first summer registration event, I attempted to turn a typical precalculus exam into an essay test – no calculations, just words.  Actually also diagrams.  You can see it at … Continue reading →

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Science Problems with an Apology

Posted on February 22, 2019 by jrh794

I added these two problems to the Precalculus homework list as part of my effort to incorporate science examples in my classes. They were taken from solutions to some physics exercises and intended to give more practice on multi-variable systems. … Continue reading →

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Intellectual Load – The Student Experience

Posted on November 13, 2018 by jrh794

“Intellectual load” as applied to website design refers to the  extraneous thinking and decision-making caused by poorly organized, inconsistent web page layout and functionality. I would like to apply this concept to the college student experience.  I  extend the definition … Continue reading →

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Elementary Statistics – Somebody Do Something, Please

Posted on August 21, 2018 by jrh794

The traditional college-level elementary statistics for non-majors course needs a big change.  p-value reasoning should be replaced with Bayesian models.  The class, call it Stat 101, is the only contact with data analysis methods that most college students will ever … Continue reading →

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Creativity Conference – What I Learned

Posted on August 7, 2018 by jrh794

The Creativity Conference was held here at SOU last Friday through Monday.   I started out, a naif, knowing nothing about how to think about creativity or how to measure it.  Here is what I learned. Creativity can be taught. Creativity can … Continue reading →

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My Worries

Posted on June 7, 2018 by jrh794

I worry that I sometimes waste my students’ time.  I know the standard lower levels of our math curriculum have antiquated parts. I need to  devise ways of delivering this required material in a modern context. I worry that my … Continue reading →

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Roads Up Mountains

Posted on February 6, 2018 by jrh794

I was mountain biking up the 2060 switchbacks when I glanced up to the left.  The edge of my road loomed steeply.  “Wow, that’s high” I said to myself, imaging how hard it would be to scramble up the 120 … Continue reading →

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Slide and Divide

Posted on January 24, 2018 by jrh794

One of our student tutors sent me this link, Slide and Divide , to a method of factoring trinomials.  It is essentially the one I explained extensively in https://jrh794.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/the-best-way-to-factor-trinomials/   I just argue to keep the fractions in the factored form since it is … Continue reading →

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