Natural Blogarithms

I was walking through main suite of the mathematics offices and glanced over at the board where some students, who I believe are in a mathematics education course, were working on calculating the sum of the first few triangular numbers.
For those of you that don’t know, triangular numbers are the numbers that represent the sum [...]

A while back, I started using the site, del.icio.us, for my bookmarks. My primary reason for doing so was so that I would have access to my bookmarks from any of the multiple computers that I use. Way down on the list of reasons to use the delicious bookmarks were for the “social [...]

(By the way, the word LaTEX is pronounced as lay-tech or L-A-tech, and it is a typesetting language.)
I never have found a “great” tool for creating ideal graphics for my exams and worksheets for use in the classes that I teach. Ideally, there would be a program that would allow me to draw basic [...]

I had a lot of fun a few years back preparing a module and a talk for a regional Mathematics and Science teachers conference at WTAMU.  In fact, this year was the first in several years that I did not prepare a talk for this particular conference.  I am already preparing one for next year [...]

JediWPMConcentrate (Windows) If any of you read Lifehacker you saw this come up last week.  There was apparently a little “toy” application (WPM Tray) that would track your typing speed down in the system tray. It would display your current typing rate in words per minute. I’m not exactly sure what time span [...]

I didn’t think I fit into the typical category of an absent minded professor. Perhaps those that know me will disagree. However, today, I proved myself wrong. I realized just a few minutes ago that I taught my entire Intermediate Algebra class with my sweater vest on inside out.
I blame [...]

I thought I’d throw out a simple little problem that intrigued me and led me off on a wild goose chase. In the end, I got almost none of my intended work done before class, while I was exploring all sorts of problems of perimeters of overlapping figures.
PROBLEM:
Pairs of identical rectanglular strips, each [...]

In some of my recent entries, I have been quite blunt when addressing some of the negative issues that have arisen in my classes this semester.  It’s time to balance these disappointments with the positives that have been going on this semester.
1.  I have loud classes.  Over the course of my six years at Wayland, [...]

Today, during my college algebra class, I was forced to deal with a small contingent of students that were being typical college freshmen, begging me to end class early having reached the end of a single section. Apparently, they believe their brains are like sponges that absorb information only up to a point. [...]

Is there a clinical diagnosis for depression resulting from grading algebra exams?  There should be.  Over the course of the last few days I finished grading all of my algebra exams that I gave last week.  I have to say that I am utterly disappointed by some of the results.  It really has been one [...]