May 2014 Posts

Precious Doodles

Year 8

I’ve seen many a precious doodles on my papers throughout the years, but this one that I discovered this morning might just take the cake:

Cute that the "stat teacher" is depicted as the North Star. But... she thinks that I led them into a typhoon? lol
Cute that the “stat teacher” is depicted as the North Star. But… she thinks that I led them into a typhoon? lol

One of my students doodled this on her AP Exam last year1 in the margin below the final problem on the exam.2

I only stumbled upon this while digging through the stack of last year’s AP exam booklets3 so that I could show my current students what the exact format of the exam looks like.

But while flipping through the exams of yesteryear, I was again reminded of the fact that I have been blessed with the opportunity to cross paths with some of the most incredibly brilliant minds over the course of the past eight years.

AP exams take place over a two week period, which began this week on Monday. Up until last year, the AP Statistics exam was on the Wednesday of the second week.4 Now that our exam is at the end of the jam-packed first week — along with Chemistry, Biology, Calculus, and English — it seems that fewer kids are staying for after-school tutorials this week. And who can blame them?

One of my former students shared this with me on Facebook today, and… it is soooooooo right:5

IMG_2374

Two days to go.

  1. yes, on the actual AP Exam… apparently she finished with enough time to spare to draw an illustration for every one of the six free response questions in the test booklet. This is remarkable if for no other reason than: we had no idea that the actual exams would be returned to the teachers this year (which to our knowledge has never actually happened before). And if you’re curious: this amazing child made a “5” on the exam. [↩]
  2. problem #6 of the FRQ, which of course was about typhoons. [↩]
  3. which, truth be told, I still don’t know why we got them back this year. We’ve never gotten them back before… and it wouldn’t surprise me if we never get them back again. [↩]
  4. So was the 11th grade English Language exam, so those two seem to be moving in lockstep [↩]
  5. This probably describes students, as much as it does teachers. [↩]
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Things that go through my head before the AP Exam

Highlights, Year 8

In previous years, I have felt like a moody, hormonal, pregnant bovine1 in the days leading up to the AP exam.

This just goes to show: never be surprised by what you can find on Google images.
This just goes to show: never be surprised by what you can find on Google images.

The following is a list of thoughts that have actually gone through my head at this point in previous campaigns:

  • “Do all of my calculators have fresh batteries?”2
  • “What if the box of AP exams catches on fire? There go the last 10 months of my hard work…”3
  • “Why aren’t more students showing up to ask questions during tutorials?!? They don’t ALL know EVERYHING…”4
  • “What if the AP exams get lost in transit on the way back to College Board? There go the last 10 months of my life…”5
  • “Why does senioritis have to be an actual thing? Can’t some biotech company come up with a free cure that would eradicate it forever?”6
  • “If my students don’t do well on the exam, my superiors are going to regret ever trusting me to teach the class…”
  • “I really hope they don’t put a question on the free-response over that one thing that I wish I had spent more time on…”7
  • “What if a student does something idiotic in the testing room and gets everyone’s score cancelled?8 There goes the last year of my life…“
  • “I can’t wait until the AP exam is over… then I can go back to feeling like a normal living human being. Then I’ll be able to sleep at night again.”9

Truth be told, now that it’s my 4th rodeo, I am feeling almost none of the above thoughts this time around. I do NOT feel like a zombie. Nor do I feel like a pregnant cow. 10 I can sleep at night, and I remember the taste of food.11

On the first day of class, when I ask students if “99” is a “good number” to them and to introduce themselves and explain why, the overarching theme is that a single number by itself is almost meaningless. Last year, I had to allow myself to be reminded that such is true with AP exam scores: At the end of all days, it is just another number.12

Curious to know what some teenagers are going through this week?13 I actually have a handful of students that are currently running the following gauntlet:

  • AP Chemistry Exam, Monday morning
  • AP Calculus Exam, Wednesday morning
  • AP English Lit,14 Thursday morning OR AP English Language,15 Friday morning
  • AP Statistics, Friday afternoon161718
  • AP Physics, Monday afternoon19
  1. a.k.a., a cow. Yes, a moo-cow. [↩]
  2. I check out some of my yellow class TI-84’s on exam day, as not all of my students have one — and you really want an 84, not an 83 in Stat. [↩]
  3. Seriously. Back in Season 5 — May 2012 — I was scared to death that something crazy like this might occur and totally ruin my life. I can readily admit: the exam meant too much to me that year. [↩]
  4. Though some would see this as a blessing. I’m sure it’s because I’m such an awesome teacher that nobody has any questions. Mmmmmm hmm. No, that’s not it. [↩]
  5. Again, the kind of thing that was going through my head in 2012. [↩]
  6. Sigh. One can dream. Except for the “free” part. That one word puts this item in “neeeeeeeeeeeeeeveeeer gonna happen” territory. [↩]
  7. Last year, that one thing was simulations. Made special worksheets and activities for it… but decided not to do them. Thought we’d be okay without. Hate to be on the wrong side of prophetic, but… that came back to bite us a little. [↩]
  8. To this end, we actually used to collect every students’ cell phone on the morning of the exam and return them afterwards… but now that almost everyone has a $600 smartphone, this becomes difficult from a practicality standpoint. [↩]
  9. Because, again, I feel like a zombified pregnant mummy-moo-cow at this time of the year. Incidentally I wanted to find a picture of a zombie-cow for this post, but… no dice just kidding – found one! [↩]
  10. Though with the new nearby Whole Foods and their self-serve barbecue… [↩]
  11. You know, “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King”, that scene where Sam and Frodo are on the rock right before Sam carries Frodo and the ring gets destroyed… [↩]
  12. No, I am not saying I don’t care about how my students do on the AP exam. I do care. But I also think that most students benefit more from getting a year of exposure to statistics while in high school before heading out to college than from just a single score on an exam. On the other hand, if a student makes a 3 or 4 on the exam and thus NEVER has to take another math class for as long as they live… well that’s a pretty sweet deal as well. [↩]
  13. #1stworldproblems, I know. [↩]
  14. for seniors [↩]
  15. for juniors [↩]
  16. Yes, this means my 11th graders are taking BACK-TO-BACK AP EXAMS. Or, as they like to put it, 7 hours of writing exams. Oh by the way, the Statistics AP Exam is much more writing than it is math. [↩]
  17. Have I mentioned how much I LOVE having our AP exam on Friday afternoon? If you’re not a teacher, let me impart this piece of wisdom upon you: Friday afternoon is the worst possible time to schedule a major exam of any type. [↩]
  18. I actually had a student suggest that we just order pizza and throw a post-AP-exam party in my classroom on Friday evening. lol [↩]
  19. this is the following Monday, just FYI. [↩]
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Podunk U vs. Harvard vs. Happiness in Life

Reading List, Year 8

Good read this morning, via Gallup, by way of NPR:

Poll: Prestigious Colleges Won’t Make You Happier In Life Or Work

The opening paragraph:

There’s plenty of anxiety in the U.S. over getting into a top college. But a new Gallup poll suggests that, later in life, it doesn’t matter nearly as much as we think. In fact, when you ask college graduates whether they’re “engaged” with their work or “thriving” in all aspects of their lives, their responses don’t vary one bit whether they went to a prestigious college or not.

The following blurb from the end of that read made me smile (emphasis mine):

In the meantime, the take-home message for students is clear, says Brandon Busteed, who leads Gallup’s education work: “If you can go to Podunk U debt free vs. Harvard for $100,000, go to Podunk.12 And concentrate on what you do when you get there.”

  1. There’s an in-joke somewhere in there for my current and former AP Stat students [↩]
  2. On the other hand, if you can go to Harvard for free……… [↩]
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Kids these days…

Can't make this stuff up, Year 8

Our school’s prom was this weekend. As such, some of my students felt compelled to dig into the details of my youth:

Divas:1 Mister Youn, what kind of kid were you?
Diva #1: Did you go to prom in high school?
Me: Yes.
Diva #1: Okay, that was [Diva #2]… she thought you didn’t.
Me: ?!?
Diva #2: Were you bullied as a kid?
Me: What? No…
Divas #1 and #2: Okay, that was [Diva #3].2

SMH…

  1. Yes, same divas divaz [↩]
  2. “Diva #3” was conveniently not present in class this day to explain herself. [↩]
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Random “Guessing”

Year 8

Today in Statistics, we investigated the following scenario:

A mathematics competition uses the following scoring procedure to discourage students from guessing (choosing an answer randomly) on the multiple-choice questions. For each correct response, the score is 13. For each question left unanswered, the score is 4. For each incorrect response, the score is 0. If there are 5 choices for each question, what is the minimum number of choices that the student must eliminate before it is advantageous to guess among the rest?1

I gave students about 20 minutes to tackle this question (along with another probability question) in groups. The following was a humorous exchange I overheard:

Guy: It might be 4 choices…
Girl: Uh… If you can eliminate 4 choices, then you’re not guessing!

Of course, the practical analogy is the SAT, on which students earn 1 point for each correct response, and lose 0.25 points for each incorrect response (while netting zero points for every question they skip).2

Based on the earlier exchange, I felt the need to emphasize:

Yeah, if you can eliminate 4 choices on an SAT question, then you should DEFINITELY answer the question.

  1. If you’re curious, the answer is: Two choices. [↩]
  2. At least until Spring 2016, when College Board eliminates the penalty for incorrect responses on the SAT. [↩]
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