Chuck a Yonnie

Welcome to the course. There are a number of online resources available to you that are designed to give you learning support whenever you need it. These comprise of this blog, the Maths Methods Wiki, the Maths Methods Ning and online videos (currently located at Teachertube but soon to be moved to the new Victorian education website called FUSE.) Each of these serves a specific purpose in supporting your learning.

Chuck a Yonnie blog
This blog serves as an information source. I will use it to post information about what we are currently doing, what is expected of you, up coming significant events such as SACs, the distribution of some learning materials (actual curriculum material such as solutions to exercises will be made available through the Wiki), and other information of general interest to you as a group. It will not be used for personal communication except in the case of very general information. YOU SHOULD CHECK THIS BLOG REGULARLY. To make this easier you can subscribe to an RSS feed (look for the RSS icon in the right hand column). Also if you simply Google the words “chuck” and “yonnie” this blog is the first site that will appear in the search results.

Maths Methods Wiki
This is the most important learning support. It will contain the fully worked solution to all the exercises you are set. As the solutions for each exercise are ready I will announce it through the Chuck a Yonnie blog. To access and read the solutions on the Wiki (see the left hand menu for the link), there are some things you need to do the following. 1) You must join Wikispaces (there is no cost to this). Even though this takes only a few minutes many students mess this up. After you have signed up you will receive an email from Wikispaces asking you to CONFIRM YOUR MEMBERSHIP by clicking on a link they provide. If you do not do this then Wikispaces automatically deletes you after a few days. You MUST CONFIRM YOUR MEMBERSHIP. Every year I say this and every year some students fail to do it and are deleted. Let’s see if we can all get it right this year! 2) Once you have joined Wikispaces you must apply to join the Maths Methods Wiki. Since the solutions are from your text book we must respect copyright and so I have to make access to this material available only to my students who I know have purchased a copy of the text. This is the reason you have to enter your Wikispaces user name and password every time you access the Wiki. 3) When you apply to me to join Wikispaces I need to be able to identify who you are. Receiving an application to join from TheLegend@hotmail.com or chickmagnet@gmail.com doesn’t help me to know who you are and will be refused, not because of the email addresses, but because I don’t know who it is who is applying. You end up frustrated and so do I. Let me know who you are when you apply.4) The solutions are published in Smartboard Notebook files. In order to open the files you must have this software installed on your home computer or notebook. See me about the best way to do this (licensing permits students who are enrolled in schools who own Smartboards to have a copy of this software on their home computer.) 5) There are already some files on the Maths Methods Wiki. These are from 2008 when I last taught Maths Methods Units 1 & 2 and are from the old text book. I will leave them there as they will be useful to you for extra revision. Solutions to the exercises in the new text book will be added as I work my way through them over the year.

Video Tutorials
These will periodically be made available to you through Teachertube for now, and later through FUSE. You will be informed of the location of these tutorials through Chuck a Yonnie. These tutorials will look and sound like being in class and watching something being explained on the board, except you will only hear and not see me or whoever is doing the tutorial. As a part of your work this year YOU will be required to produce one tutorial per semester which, once it has been checked for accuracy by me, will then be published for the use of your peers. These tutorials are useful if you need to repeat explanations of new work, and later for revising when yo have forgotten what you learned earlier in the year (we all do this – February seems a long time ago once you get to November!)

This resources will assist you when you get “stuck” at home and need more assistance. They will help you check the accuracy of your work. They will help you maintain the PACE necessary for you to have a successful year.

I am looking forward to working with your all through 2010.

Mr Alan Thwaites

This set of guidelines is designed to assist you to maintain an organised and well looked after workbook. This is not about having a “pretty” workbook; it is about being organised so that you can work efficiently and effectively, revise efficiently and effectively and be assessed efficiently and effectively. This page is to be downloaded and pasted to the inside cover of your mathematics book for your reference. (You can download a copy of this page in MS Word Student Workbook Guidelines 2010.)

All student workbooks must have the following features include:

• A cover page including:
o Student Name
o Homegroup and Subschool
o Mathematics teacher
o Homegroup teacher
o Subschool Leader
o Border around all 4 edges of the page
• A table of contents on the page following the cover page, labelling each chapter and assessment task within the workbook
o For example:
o Chapter 1 – Number skills Page 3
o CAT 1 – Number skills Page 15
o Chapter 2 – Data and statistics Page 18
• At the start of every term, you need to paste in the Term planner so that you can keep up with your classwork and homework every week. This planner must be signed by parents/guardians at the conclusion of every week.

Each page in the student workbook needs to have the following features:
• A margin along the left hand and top edges ruled with a 30cm ruler and red pen
• The page number at the bottom right hand corner of every page
• The date written in the top right hand corner in black pen
• The name of the task written in the top left hand corner in black or coloured pen
• All question numbers must to be written in red pen
• All working out must to be completed in either blue pen or pencil
• All graphs and diagrams must be completed in pencil using rulers and drawing instruments
• If solving a problem with more than one step, each step needs to be written on a separate line with the equals sign (=) lining up underneath each other
• At the end of each exercise and task, the page must be ruled off with a 30cm ruler and red pen
• Each new exercise needs to start after the end of the last exercise.

Well we have arrived everyone! The solutions to the final exercise have now been posted to the Maths Methods Wiki. This week we conclude the theory and next week begin in earnest to revise for the examinations that are now only a month away. A major part of your revision will be going over the exercises you have already completed. It is these exercises, more than practice exams, that will prepare you for success. Having said that, practice exams are important too, especially for helping you to get the sense of the structure and pace of the exam. They are less helpful though for revising content – the exercises will serve you better in that regard as they cover the WHOLE course whereas exams are only a sampling of the course materials.

The complete solutions to Ex 13.3 have now been added to the Wiki. This completes the work needed for the final SAC next Tuesday. Solutions to the practice SAC are partially on the Ning and Ms Day will be running a class after school Thursday to go through the solutions with you. You should make sure that you attend this revision session.

Additionally, on Friday next week we will have a practice Exam (modelled on Exam 1).

To complete the theory for the course we only have Ex 13.4 to go! We are getting close people!

Interesting that they call this the Normal Distribution. I mean, does that mean the ones we have been studying were Abnormal Distributions? In any case, we have finally arrived at our LAST chapter so YAY! That’s the good news! It also means that final exams are rushing towards us at light sped (well, maybe a tad slower). Gulp!

In celebration of this milestone I have uploaded the complete solutions to Ex 13.1 (The Normal Distribution) and Ex 13.2 (The Standard Normal Distribution). Yes, two exercises for the price of one! There are only four exercises in this last chapter, so we are now half way through the final chapter!

Don’t forget the SAC that will be held on Tuesday September 15 – it’s your last one! Most of you already have the practice SAC. For those of you who do not, it is on the Ning!

The complete solutions for Ex 12.1 Continuous Random Variables and Ex 12.2 Statistics of Continuous Random Variables have now been posted on the Wiki. I have also posted some of the solutions to Ex 12.3 Applications of Continuous Random Variables.

This is our second last chapter! I have posted the partially completed solutions for Ex 12.1 Continuous Random Variables and Ex 12.2 Statistics of Continuous Random Variables on the Wiki. About 2/3 of the worked solutions are completed in each exercise which should be sufficient to assist you on Friday when I will be absent as you are aware. Do you best to work as far as you can through these exercises.

See you all next week.

The complete solutions to all exercises 11.1 to 11.5 inclusive have now been posted to the Maths Methods Wiki. Remember to write the appropriate formula at the start of each problem as it will embed these in your mind – recall in exams will then be much easier. (…and yes I know it is tedious but it will pay off in the end!)

Remember to do some problems manually so as to prepare for the no-technology exam. Also you need to be very familiar with how to use the binompdf and binomcdf function and when each of these is the appropriate function to us. They can be input manually using the ALPHA key or you can find then using the CATALOG and F3 keys. Also when inputting matrices into the Ti89 remember to use square brackets. eg [[5,3][4,9]] is how a 2×2 matrix would be input.

Next Tuesday we start Chapter 12 on Continuous Random Variables.

The complete solutions for Ex 11.1 (Discrete Random Variables) and Ex 11.2 (Statistics of Discrete Random Variables) have been posted on the Wiki. I have also posted the half completed solutions (Quest 1 to 10) for Ex 11.3 (The Binomial Distribution).

How are you going with your practice exam questions? Are these now a regular part of your studies?

Using Interactive Whiteboard tools you can make instructive videos for your students. An example is below: