"H" is for Horizon

T is for Teamwork

A is for Accountability

M is for Mental Fitness

Macy's CEO would love more emphasis on Math

Please see below for Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren's comments on Math:


Q. Anything you would like business schools to teach more? Less?
A. In our business, there’s not enough emphasis on math. Coming out of college, we really like to have kids who like math, study math and get it. And so I’d like to make sure that there is an emphasis on math. I think there is a strong emphasis on marketing already, and we want that and we need that. But to me, the math piece is weak in most business school educations, and I’d like to have more emphasis on that.
Q. But somebody might say, “That’s what calculators are for.”
A. And that’s exactly the problem. Because when, at least when I was in school, we didn’t have the computer technology that we have today to do a lot of the work for us. And so I think there’s logic that has to go into this. And I don’t think you should actually have to have a calculator for every decision that you make that has numbers attached to it. Some of that should just come to you quickly, and you should be able to quickly move to your instincts about that being a good or not good decision.
And I think that just knowing how to manage people for the situation and individually, managing them differently — what I would call situational management — is really important. You really have to have some instincts there to adjust to get the most out of people and the most out of different situations. I don’t know how you teach that; I just want to make sure that it’s known that it has to be different, and you have to make adjustments.

Forbes Magazine's Article on Remedial Math

Like sports coaching, academic coaching can help people improve their knowledge, skills and attitude to develop to their potential. Kumon’s back-to-basics philosophy is attractive to parents who would like their kids to be more knowledgeable and self-dependent. By learning the standard Math algorithms, students reduce their dependency on the calculator while improving their grades and gaining confidence.

This comment posted on forbes.com
http://rate.forbes.com/comments/CommentServlet?op=cpage&sourcename=story&StoryURI=forbes/2009/0302/095_remedial_math.html

An interesting Letter to the Editor regarding Math homework in the New York Times today.
Here is the text:

To the Editor:
I wonder if the educators cited in the article have ever tried to teach the New York City-mandated math curriculum to students who enter high school at a sixth-grade level. Perhaps gifted students can “chill” during vacations.
But the 98 percent of students who don’t attend Stuyvesant and the other specialized high schools need to catch up — and homework is one of the few tools we teachers control that can help us provide individualized instruction.
We either raise the level of homework for these kids or lower our expectations of them — the choice is obvious.
Mitch Kurz
New York, April 4, 2007
The writer is a math teacher at the Bronx Center for Science and Math.

What Do Students Need Help With?

Algebra
Generalizing from y = mx + b so that the result is an equation like y = 2x + 5.
Students benefit from being reminded that they are finding the equation that describes the entire line not just a point.
I like to ask them "How many points are on the line?" -- the answer I like the most is "Infinite" but "Too many to count" or "A real lot" are very acceptable answers.

It takes a while to see that (x-5)/(5-x) = -1!!


Calculus and Number Lines

The idea of limits and that inscribing an n-sided polygon in a circle, the more sides you have, the closer the area is to the area of the circle. So as n approaches infinity using a circle with a radius of 1, the area approaches pi (3.14159265....).

Secant and tangent lines have nothing to do with trig functions secant and tangent!!

A really cool problem was f(x) = [x] + [-x] which involves the greatest integer function.
The TI-84 function for greatest integer function is Int. The greatest integer function is best demonstrated with a number line and asking the student what was the last number that you passed. If you are exactly at an integer, then the answer is that number.
For example, [2.5] = 2 we passed 2 on the way to 2.5.
and [4] = 4
But [-2.5] = -3 we passed -3 on the way to -.25 (but we have not yet passed -2!!)
The cool thing about this problem is that for most x's, such as x = 2.5,
f(x) = [2.5] + [-2.5] which comes out to
f(x) = 2 + -3 = -1
The exception is at exactly an integer -- f(4) = [4] + [-4] = 4 + -4 = 0.
This graph looks like a straight line like y = -1, however at each integer value, there is a discontinuity, as y jumps to 0 at -3, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, etc.
This is best seen by setting xmin = 0.99 and xmax = 1.01 on the window menu -- at x = 1 there is a dot on the x axis!!

Trigonometry

The Law of Cosines is really the Pythagorean Theorem with a little extra.
We have always been using it except that if we can use the Pythagorean Theorem then we must have a right triangle!
If we rewrite a^2 + b^2 = c^2 as
c^2 = a^2 + b^2 - 2ab cos C (cos 90 = 0)
so we are used to seeing it as
c^2 = a^2 + b^2


General Math (Percents)

I love to work with students on 'trick questions' .

For example, you buy a stock at $100 -- it goes up 10% and then down 10%, what is its final price?

You buy a stock for $40 -- it goes up 50% and then down 50%, what is its final price?

And, you buy a stock for $60 -- it goes up 100% and down 100%, what is its final price?