#math 100

Today in my Math 100 classes we went over changing fractions to decimals and percentages and vice versa, and all those other permutations. 

I am a little frustrated with myself for not emphasizing relevance with this lesson. Of everything I teach in Math 100, the work with decimals and percentages is by far the most applicable and the easiest to relate to "real world" tasks and accomplishments. 

I did incorporate a warm-up problem based on tipping - if this is your bill, how much will you leave for a 15% tip? 20% How do you do this when you're actually IN this situation? Estimate and round? Use a tip calculator app? Or do it the "math class" way? 

I could, alas, SHOULD have taken it a lot further. Have a whole class discussion wherein THEY generate the content and tell me when they've had to use decimals, fractions, percentages instead of the other way around. I'm still caught up in the "teacher works 85% students work 15%" paradigm in my head for some reason. It's easy to fall into; the lower achieving your students are, the easier it is. But it's exhausting and it turns students into passive observers rather than active participants. 

Education cannot be (fully) acquired passively. I should not deprive them. 

On a brighter note...I've noticed that I've been having a lot of success with incorporating a few relevant and appropriate personal details and anecdotes into my daily teaching. This was partially inspired by a post that went around recently showing the results of a class discussion based on the opener "We want a teacher who..." Some of the responses included "tells us stories about his/her life" and "is a real person." 

I find that if I throw in just a few humanizing details, students are much more attentive. It's hard to form a relationship with a robot.