Tuesday, July 1, 2014

APSI Day 2

Today was packed full of information yet again.  I overheard ML saying that he thought that the 4th edition of BVD had been corrected.  I'm really hoping to get a hard copy of that book to review for adoption.  One thing is for sure, I have alot to do.

My hour drive in and out is proving to be productive.  This morning I kept thinking about how much I like blogging about what I've learned.  I think it helps me revisit the information and make it my own.  I'm going to try to incorporate that into all of my classes this year and see how it works.  With tweetdeck I could just assign a class or a subject a hash tag and have students blog then post to twitter using that hash tag.  I thought I'd give them 5 minutes at the end of class where they at the very least say what they learned in class and what they still have questions about.  I also started blogs of mine for each subject where I can give them information and instructions.  I've used schoology in the past but I think I like twitter better.

Today's take-aways are:

1) ML gave us his infamous APSI files with all of his lessons, notes, problems, tests on it.  So excited to explore that.  I've been thinking about what I will use to cut and past into my ISNs.  I've been using those for about 5 years now and love how they keep me organized.  I never have to guess where I left off in a class because I make one for each class with the students.

2)  The flash drive has voice waves from NPR that will be an interesting diversion from the ordinary.  Those combined with TED talks will be a great way for me to start flipping my class.

3)  The annotated teachers edition of TPS has the AP released problems that test each chapter in the chapter noted - serious bonus for me!

4)  "lurking" variables are now referred to as extraneous variables because lurking implies that they are waiting in a dark alley ready to pounce on the experiment and ruin it.

We covered sampling and experimental design today.  I'm feeling pretty familiar with those this year so I'm hoping that I can have some fun with these units.  Tomorrow we start inference.  That is a pretty wide topic that I'm not nearly as comfortable with.

Thinking ahead to next year I think the biggest hurdle I'm going to face is how to wade through the pluthera of problems and decide which ones are most valuable for the students.  I'm planning to apply to read at the end of the year since it will be my 3rd and hoping that if I'm selected it will help me to understand the test more.  So thankful that I'm plugged into a community of AP Stats teachers on twitter!

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