"management"

No matter what incentives or punishments I throw at my students, nothing works better than a healthy class relationship.

http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=36#more-36

introduce a good question

from a math blog:
http://101studiostreet.com/wordpress/?p=691

Here’s what I want: I want the students to derive the equations of motion [a(t), v(t), and x(t)] from first principles. I want them to think about how the wind pushes a sailboat, and I want them to use their basic understanding of physics (F=ma) to go from there. I can’t say that aloud, though, or it has become my investigation they then have to do. I have to let it grow, otherwise all I’ll get is a picture of how well they follow my directions, not how well their mathematical intuition is developing.¹

So, I need to introduce a good question, one that is clear about what we’re doing, but not so clear that it maps the whole process out artificially. This process is the math. By using only the asinine problems from the book you are relegating math to a status of recipe following. Do you really want your kids to be the kind of people that won’t attempt to make a pizza from scratch for lack of the 1 tsp of anise seed that has little to do with the overall success of the dish? That’s the kind of math that is predominantly taught. Barf.