Page 182 - 1994.Millard.North

Many students leave homework to the last
minute. Junior Nikki Botdorf uses her
calcul ator to qui ckly fin ish her algebra
before school starts. (Alex Herr)

r
Change Innovative
"""

Jennifer David
Numbers, formulas, cal- etitious memori zati on of usual
culators, functions, uhhgg ... "It 's math," Seni or Dave Gonnion
just memorizati on," most students said . Graphics calcul ators were
said about math . Many students anoth er improvement in th e math
got frustrated with the same old de partme nt. " We a re using
routine of doin g a th ousand math graphic calcul ators more and more
problems every ni ght for home- in cl ass. They reall y save time on
Teachers are willing to help student s during work, but recent changes in the homework and tests and made it
their free peri ods. Teacher Laura Siemens
helps Senior Carrie Old ham with her math department tried to fix this easier to un derstand things th at
homework. (Heather Deffenb augh ) problem. needed to be graphed," Junior
More teachers imple- Matt Jensen said .
mented more hands on projects in New topi cs and classes
their classes. In Al gebra III-TV also helped make math a little
students made boxes to represent more exciting. A new Precalcu-
intersecting pl anes and to show lu s class was piloted by satellite.
how the formula for cubed fun c- "We tri ed to implement a cl ass for
tions worked. In math topi cs, stu- peopl e who were past consumer's
dents experimented with fourth and math but did not want to proceed
fifth dimensional obj ects and ir- to calculus," Department Head
regul ar shapes. "I loved pl ayin g Paul Sanders said. The math
with the stella-octangul ars in cl ass. departmental so pil oted new books
Tt really helped to vi sualize in basic algebra, geometry, and
them," S e ni o rNicolle Al gebra V. Not yet printed in
Cumberland said . books, new math concepts such as
Teachers also strayed chaos and fractals are bein g taught
from the usual bookwork learn- in math topi cs.
in g. More projects, papers and With all the new books,
computer work were done in math teaching methods, and topi cs,
classes. "I like math more because math became more th an numbers
I saw some teachers who teach in and memori zati on and became
a more abstract form th at reall y more diverse to meet the needs of 1
made me think in stead of th e rep- different students.e t•
'- Teachers try to do more hands on activ itie s a
(,
/J teacher helps a geometry class construct
with their classes. Mr. Pulverenti's student
perpendicular lines.
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