Response to Educational Blogs

I was happy to look again at Deb's Math Blog today.  It was great timing because there were some quick little quizzes on finding the line of symmetry in a quadratic function.  There were also some great PDF worksheets on solving quadratic functions by factoring, completing the square, and using the quadratic formula.  The timing was great because I am beginning the chapter on all of these topics this week with my Honors Algebra 1 class.  Our Prentice Hall textbook is a little bit on the easy side, so I am always looking for some challenging problems for my honors class.

There was also an interesting post about the relationship between exercise and math.  Apparently a new study came out saying that people are better able to solve mathematical problems if they exercise.  This makes sense to me.  I guess this is motivation to exercise more!

Lastly, I saw a cool post on Maria Andersen's Blog.  She teaches math at a community college.  She posted a video to show how she completely changed the atmosphere of her classroom.  She got rid of all of the forward facing desks, and replace them with large tables.  Her students spend a good percentage of their time together at the white boards working out problems in groups or pairs.  This is great because it makes the class more fun, and the students are learning more.