Monday, April 27, 2009

Revision Questions

I did revision on standard form and quadratic expressions and equations for my 4 SA class. Used the PATS 1 and PATS 2 worksheets. Only about 1/2 of the class are able to finish the worksheets within the 1 hour period. Students need to time themselves in answering the questions coz they only have 2 1/2 hours to answer the exam paper. I'm quite comfident students in this class will do well in the mid year exam. I'm putting up the PATS 1, PATS 2 question paper and the answers (PATS 1, PATS 2)here.

Identity and Inverse Matrix

Taught Identity and Inverse Matrix for my 5 KA class today. Glad to see most of them are able to find the inverse of a 2 x 2 matrix. Sadly there are some girls who are not interested at all in learning. It's not easy being a teacher, having to deal with all sorts of students. There are those who are very bright and self motivated. I don't have to worry about them. Then there's those who are slower but willing to learn. I enjoy being able to help them. Then there are those who's not interested at all, that's where my headache is. How to make them interested in learning???? Any ideas?? Sometimes I do wonder what they think about when they're in school. The sad thing is I know that they're capable of better things but they're are not willing to try. Enough of my ramblings, I'm suppose to write on the lesson that I did today :

Identity Matrix (I)

A square matrix in which all the main diagonal elements are 1’s and all the remaining elements are 0’s is called an Identity Matrix.

# Identity Matrix is denoted with the letter “In×n”, where n×n represents the order of the matrix.
# One of the important properties of identity matrix is: A×In×n = A, where A is any square matrix of order n×n.

Example
2 x 2 Identity Matrix


3 x 3 Identity matrix



n x n Identity matrix




Inverse Matrix
For a square matrix A, the inverse is written A-1. When A is multiplied by A-1 the result is the identity matrix, I.

AA-1 = A-1A = I
Example: For matrix A = ,


its inverse is


since AA-1 =


and A-1A =

Please do all the assignment given so that we can discuss the answers next week.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Chocolate Solves Anything




Need to pass that math test?
Better stock up on chocolate. According to a recent study-

Mental arithmetic became easier after volunteers had been given large amounts of compounds found in chocolate, called flavanols, in a hot cocoa drink.

They were also less likely to feel tired or mentally drained, the findings, presented at the British Psychological Society annual conference in Brighton show.....Read more

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Revision

Exam is right around the corner. It's time to do revision on the topics that my students have learned so far. Topics that will be included in the exams are

1. Standard Form
2. Quadratic Expressions and Equation
3. Sets
4. The Straight Line

and some Form 3 topics. I will have to check with Mrs Chan on what those topics will be.

There's some good sites students can check on :

Quadratic Equation
.
Below is some excerpt from one of the site

Example
Calculate the solutions of the quadratic equation below by factoring
quadratic equation: y = x² + 4x + 4

Solutions



You can read more at the Math Warehouse site


The Straight Line
.

These links provide useful information about straight lines.

Interactive Mathematics

Maths Library
Thinkquest

Homework

Got a surprise from my 5KA girls yesterday. Told them that I'm not giving them enough homework. Surprisingly they agreed, they wanted more written work to be given. I've heard students complaining about being given too much homework. Maybe the science students have more homework compared to the Arts stream students. Well I guess I will use some of the modules available to make life easier. The module for matrices can be downloaded here(courtesy of Sekolah Menengah Sains Muzaffar Shah)

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

A Reminder To Myself

A reminder to myself.

Sets Again

We are doing sets again today. Gave more exercises on the topic, as the saying goes practise makes perfect. This is very true for math, the more exercises you do, the better you become at math. Hopefully by the end of this lesson, most of the students can get a firm grasp on this topic.

Exercises were taken from the math textbook, Skills review page 75, Question 2,3,5 and 6. Check out the answers here

Quiz

Gave a quiz on sets for my 4SA girls on Monday. Planned to have a discussion on the questions after they finished solving the problems but didn't get to do it coz they didn't finish on time. This means most of them are still confused with the topic. What did I do wrong??. Sometimes I wonder if I'm teaching the right way. I prefer having my girls to figure out how to solve the problems themselves before giving them the answers. For me, understanding the steps in solving the problems is very important than just getting the right answer. Its okay to make mistakes but the important thing is to learn from the mistakes. I will post the questions and answers for the quiz here once I'm done with the answer scheme. The questions are actually past years examinantion questions.

Quiz Questions

Answers

Monday, April 20, 2009

Multiplying Matrices

Whew!!!!. At last, it's done. I'm talking about being observed by my head of department on my math teaching. Thank you Form 5 KA girls for being so cooperative. It didn't go as well as i have planned it (didn't get the new interactive white board to work), but it was okay. Don't know what my marks will be, but the important thing is that my girls understood what i'm teaching (hopefully this is true). You see, I'm actually trained as a science teacher. I've only started teaching maths about 4 years ago, so there's a lot of finer details of teaching math that i still don't know. Hopefully I'll get better as the years goes by. Thank you Pn Yeap for giving me guidance and tips on my teaching.

Anyway these are the slides and videos that I use in my Form 5 class today.







I'm putting these up for those 7 students that were not in class today. Good luck to Izzati, Shuhadah and Nani in the softball competition. Hope you'll make the school proud but don't forget to finish the homework on matrices that were assigned today. See you all on Wednesday...

Math Is Everywhere

Sets

Sharing with all of you a useful link containing an interactive tool to study the concept of Venn diagrams in Sets. This link might be useful for my 4SA girls. .
http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~west/applets/Venn.html

A Litte Guide In Studying Maths

1. Read what the teacher will teaching before you go to class.Reading mathematics is not like reading a novel or even history. Speed reading techniques are not appropriate.

2. Understand the concepts.

3. Practice.Be sure you understand the concepts before you practice. Then practice will help you remember and give you confidence in your mastery.

4. Keep up with homeworks. Mathematics is not a spectator sport. The only way you can learn mathematics is by doing it.

  • Understand the purpose of homework. Homework in mathematics classes is assigned to help you understand certain concepts and to help you build certain skills.
  • Try to understand the process, not the specific problem.
  • Mark homework problems you still do not understand and get help with them before the next class.
  • Keep your homework in a convenient and neat notebook so that you will be able to find questions or difficulties you have quickly and easily. This will also provide an invaluable study guide for tests.

5. Ask questions. Don’t hesitate.Get help right away. The longer you wait before getting help, the harder it will be to get caught up. Don’t feel embarrassed to ask questions and get help; even the best mathematicians have felt completely lost at some point.

My First Entry

Me? blogging?. I never taught I would be joining the millions of others who considered themselves as bloggers. You see, I'm a very private person. I prefer to save my thoughts and feelings for myself and not sharing it with others. Never mind. This blog was created with the intention of letting my students keep up with their math when I'm not around. You see, as an IT administrator in school, I've missed quite a number of classes. I am sorry but I don't have a choice. So I was thinking, why not a blog?. Most of the students have their blogs anyway. I could post my lessons here so that my students can view it when I'm not around (that is if they want it). Well that why I'm writing my first entry. I'm new at blogging so I might take some time to get the hang of it. Hopefully I can keep this blog active. Signing off for now......