Today we got our first Exam back. I did pretty well, I got an 87. This was not the A I was hoping for, but I plan on making it an A with the extra credit assignment we were given by the professor, where we look at what questions we missed on the exam, redo them the right way, with the right answer, explain what we did wrong, etc. (it’s pretty in-depth), and then show her in a private interview and hopefully get 5 extra points added to the exam grade.

 

I think I can handle it, because I only missed 3 multiple choice questions (one I totally called a few posts ago), and part of one of the open answer questions.

 

I really love this class. I thought I was going to hate it. I love the way it’s structured, I love the blog, but what I love most about this class is that our teacher is actually more concerned that we learn the material than she is about being hard on us.  What I mean by this, is that most professors make you do the homework, and you don’t have the opportunity to check your work. They grade you, and half the time you never learn from your mistakes, because that would require taking your already graded homework, looking it over, finding the answer somehow, and then doing it again the right way but with no reward (other than learning the material for a test).  Instead of doing that, our Professor has taken every single step of the way to actually ensure we learn. Homework is set up so that if we get the problem wrong, we can work a problem that is almost identical but with different numbers, and try again. It also has a built in tutorial on mathxl.com where you are shown exactly how to solve the problem. That has been a GOD send. Plus, the blog helps solidify info, apply what we’re learning to other things, and learn from classmates who are doing blogs as well. And now, even though we finished Exam 1, she’s allowing us to LEARN from our mistakes, and be credited for doing so. I think this is a very innovative, forward-thinking technique, and I assume this is why I heard from several fellow classmates last semester that I needed to take the Professor I’m learning from. I’m really not trying to suck-up here, I feel that many calculus (and other subjects) teachers/professors could learn a lot from my professor’s style. I couldn’t be happier.

Today we spent most of class going over the weekend homework, which I felt was relatively easy. Next class we’re moving into Logs and Cosine and Sine… things I recall vaguely, but have no idea what I used to do with them… I know, it’s scary when you think “I used to work with Logs and Sines and Cosines, but now I have no idea what they even ARE.” I have to give myself a little slack, though, it’s been almost a decade.

Once I get a little refresher on these things, I plan on actually making a video explaining them. If not I will dedicate a post to them probably tomorrow once I go through the homework and look at some videos on some of the linked sites I have on here.

I hope my fellow classmates did well on the test. I’ll leave you with this little gem.