audrey

oopsies. not great that your prof started off the year with misinformation lmao

by audrey; 1724794414; Report

i am student teaching this semester so i am very excited for that!! not super interested in the spanish elective im taking, but it shouldnt be too bad. what about you?

by audrey; 1724171627; Report

that's epic, i hope you enjoy the teaching! one of my classes is my semester-long project, and it seems i have been approved to talk about what i will probably end up writing my thesis on in grad school.

i am sure the spanish will be fine... thankfully it is an easy language to read and there's lots of shared vocab, so i bet you'll do fine...

by iason; 1724175475; Report

yes the spanish class is a 4000 level elective so it is less about speaking spanish and more about sociolinguistics (and it is turning out to be a really interesting class with a super cool professor). i hope you have fun with your project class!!

by audrey; 1724794360; Report

oh good, at least it's neat. i await to hear more about this.


project class started off great. i got to leave first on the first day because my project i proposed didn't need any clarifying or justifying. made sense, was valid, off i went.

by iason; 1724817160; Report

havent been feeling too great

by audrey; 1717430001; Report

i completely resonate with the sentiment of kind of knowing how to do something on a practice test but knowing if it were the real deal it would be bad. i know you've mentioned struggling with trig in the past so best of luck in figuring that out! im not sure what exactly you are doing in regards to trig, but i was reminded of this video that some student made that i found on reddit. its kind of more funny than helpful imo because it is just so badly written and sang by an ai voice but idk maybe it'll help you
https://share.cleanshot.com/CYcmDxr7

by audrey; 1715489118; Report

i just woke up and started watching that video and holy shit my brain is so confused. not that anything on the video is confusing in itself content wise, but the music and the visuals are messing with my brain haha



i will try again when i am not so malleable......

by iason; 1715538045; Report

lmao those are the best kinds of professors

by audrey; 1712697332; Report

no unfortunately i have not had the time recently. im hoping to get back into it more over the summer

by audrey; 1712412800; Report

keep me posted

by iason; 1712453602; Report

your comment actually inspired me to finally finish this cardigan that had been sitting unfinished in my room for about a month, so thank you!

by audrey; 1712506411; Report

yippie! when it is done, i'd love to see the result. my yiayia often crochets vests for me when she's in the states, and i quite like wearing them.

by iason; 1712520540; Report

yea ive definitely gotten questions like that on exams before. im not 100% if i understand your question, but in my experience if you are asked to prove something is not true, a counterexample is all that is necessary. if you are told to prove that something is true, that is when you would do the formal proof process. "prove" does not always mean you have to write a formal proof, it is all dependent on context

by audrey; 1712178971; Report

The question said "prove x"
As far as I could tell, x wasn't true, so I did my best to prove that.
Is that a normal scenario?

by Fawkes; 1712179468; Report

oh i see. if it just says “prove x” then that means x should be true. the only time it could be false is if it asked “prove or disprove” or just “disprove”. what was the statement? are you sure it was actually false?

by audrey; 1712184045; Report

I'm pretty sure it did just say prove, but I don't remember the rest of the question all that well off the top of my head, hence I am not sure that it was false.

by Fawkes; 1712185861; Report

It turns out I just am bad and silly at math.

by Fawkes; 1712770041; Report

what was the proof about?

by audrey; 1712773220; Report

For every m =8j, there are two perfect numbers a and b, |a - b| = m , where a*b is a perfect square. The degree to which I fucked the ball on this question is too humiliating to explain.

by Fawkes; 1712776502; Report

god i do not miss doing those kinds of proofs. im an analysis person through and through

by audrey; 1712782564; Report

definitely move away from standardized testing. im not even really a big fan of exams or tests for math in general. i think shifting more towards project-based assessment where students have to utilize mathematical skills for real-world problem solving is a much better way of assessing knowledge than through tests. i also think there should be more integration of technology into math education. although honestly a lot problems within mathematics stem from the way that schools are structured to prioritize to hit certain scores or grades in order to be "successful", and neglecting to encourage creativity and deeper learning in math. i think there needs to be significant overhaul in how we measure mathematical competence in schools

by audrey; 1711260956; Report

I generally agree with the projects > tests sentiment.

Can you elaborate on the technology integration angle?

by Fawkes; 1711472453; Report

after getting to college i have realized just how much tech had been underutilized in math before now and how much other students do not understand how to use technology to help them learn. a little anecdote: i tutored this one student with dylsexia and he was much better at learning geometrically than analytically. i would try to explain something algebraically and it went completely over his head, but when i showed him the same exact thing graphically in desmos, it instantly clicked for him.
matlab, mathmatica, geogebra, desmos, etc. are all fantastic platforms that can be used to better visualize concepts and have great potential to aid in instruction. desmos, more specifically, has a great platform for teachers to create and share interactive lessons on a wide variety of topics. this can be a great jumping off point for inquiry based learning. more importantly, though, tech literacy is becoming increasingly more necessary in the world and it is important that all students of all sorts of backgrounds (many of which do not have access to laptops, wifi, etc. at home) are provided with the opportunity to use technology in an academic or professional way, which will most likely be necessary for future employment.

by audrey; 1711493106; Report

It strikes me that a lot of teachers just teach with what they know. Do you think that as people like yourself who are capable of explaining these concepts better using software age into more senior teaching and curriculum deciding positions, that these things might just become standard in a few years? Or is it your opinion that current pedagogy constrains teachers to very formalized ways of doing things and there needs to be some systemic change? Something else entirely?

by Fawkes; 1711568900; Report

to your first question, absolutely. i mean im already seeing it first hand with the curriculum at my university. most of the older professors really dislike technology and barely understand how to use canvas. they refuse to do anything other than lecture with a chalk board because that is all they know how to do. younger profs however use so much more technology in their courses and i just find it provides a lot more support. like for example, one of the younger professors at my university who is also a curriculum developer created an online platform for lectures, supplemental material, practice, and homework for pretty much all of the 1000/2000 math courses. so there is definitely a shift towards technology and i predict that this will become fairly standard in the future.
to your other question, i dont necessarily think that it is pedagogy that is holding teachers back. it is more so the lack of resources and lack of training. the lack of resources is a given considering how underfunded most public schools are. but even schools with the resources are not utilizing them to their max potential and i believe that is because most teachers are just so used to not having it that they do know how to effectively integrate it. for example, i interned at a fairly well off school last year where every student had their own chromebook and there was a class set of ipads. it drove be insane how my mentor teacher would NEVER use the ipads even though they had so many applications that could be helpful, like an app that projected student work onto the main projector.
to add to your comment about teachers only teaching what they know, i believe another problem is that most math teachers are not really mathematicians. that is not necessarily a bad thing, but i think it leads to many teachers having a very weak understanding of mathematics and thus they struggle to make connections between concepts and effectively integrate tech into their classrooms. ideally we would have people who are both knowledgeable in higher mathematics and also good teachers, but teachers are not paid anywhere near enough for that to be a reality.

by audrey; 1711572681; Report

damn sorry i did not mean to write that much lmao. this is just something i am really interested in

by audrey; 1711572714; Report

To be fair, I asked the question and have indeed already read your response, so I wouldn't say you wrote too much at all. I don't really have anything more to add on the topic, but your opinions here are all coherent and would be persuasive if I wasn't already more or less on the same page.

by Fawkes; 1711573068; Report

i skimmed through your document, what exactly is this algorithm for? i saw the word roblox so now i am very curious lmao. also it is rather unfortunate you haven't had any enjoyable math experiences as of recent.
it is a lot of work, but i am currently really enjoying my fourier analysis class. here is my work from my last hw assignment for a little taste (upon rereading my work, i have realized that i made a ton of spelling errors so please ignore that lmao. i think much fast than i can write).
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c3MTW_v0IEmoApN9PzsU_OkBJ1WiviFrpWdBGp_wlCQ/edit?usp=sharing
another thing you might find interesting: a few weeks ago in my number theory class we talked about RSA cryptosystems using mersenne numbers. it is a really interesting way to encrypt and decrypt data using basic number theory. you seem like someone who would enjoy cryptography so i thought id mention it. here is a link to more info if you're interested:
https://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~anne/SQ2014/thematic_tutorials/numtheory_rsa.html

by audrey; 1710796923; Report

Player clustering for a roblox battle game that a friend runs. It's supposed to encourage staying in groups by making you weaker when you are away from other players.

Honestly Just haven't done a lot of math in general recently. My math midterm was the first of them and then I crunched hard for my cs courses, then came spring break, over which I only worked on the roblox thing.

Fourier transforms are on my list of things I ought to get a better intuition for. We went over them at the end of the differential equations course that I took overseas and is one of the topics that my mind turned to goop for. It wasn't really the teacher or the classes fault, nor was it that I had a hard time with the subject specifically, it just happened to turn up at a part of the semester where I wasn't very invested in general.

RSA is cool. I've watched all sorts of videos on how it works from a computer implementation side. It's really just a shame that it doesn't stand very proud against modern encryption algorithms anymore.

by Fawkes; 1710803615; Report

oh that sounds interesting! and yea fourier transforms aren't necessarily hard there is just a lot of material to memorize about it and it can be very easy for me to mix things up lol

by audrey; 1710860597; Report

Nasty! I hate memorization!

by Fawkes; 1710929316; Report

math classes should normalize formula and theorem sheets for exams ‍💫

by audrey; 1710957329; Report

The last class I was allowed to use a formula sheet on was like calc 2 I think. But yes, I agree I support audrey for president of all math reform.

by Fawkes; 1710957713; Report

OMGG i did not know that she came out with a new album!! i am listening to it now tho so thank you lol. i expect it will be amazing as per usual

by audrey; 1709334860; Report

no problem i was excited when i remembered it was coming out the other day would love to hear what ur fav song is off the album when u finish it

by coolhotdog; 1709335495; Report

after my first listen, my initial favs are "but not kiss" and "underdressed at the symphony". i was not expecting there to be so much heavy ass autotune, but i think it worked well for her and was fun. overall, a very enjoyable album!! what did you think?

by audrey; 1709343733; Report

i definitely wish there was maybe a few more songs on the album but i enjoyed it! my fav is definitely but not kiss i was able to see her in concert back in october and she opened with that one and it sounded so good

by coolhotdog; 1709344518; Report

omg you got to see her?? im so jealous!! also yea i completely agree that i wish it was a bit longer. overall, really enjoyable tho!

by audrey; 1709507679; Report

ya i didnt have the best view but it was still very nice! also from what i see on ur profile we like a lot of the same artists if u have any music reccs pls let me know trying to find new stuff

by coolhotdog; 1709529598; Report

gladly! im a big weyes blood fan, so i will never miss the chance to plug her music, especially her album "titanic rising". some other albums i think you might like are "masterpiece" by big theif, "blue bell knoll" by cocteau twins, "crumbling" by mid-air theif (very fun atmospheric listen), and "yume" by lamp. i would also love some music recs if you have any :)

by audrey; 1709601501; Report

i love lamp! and of course i’ll dm you them so i’m not blowing up ur comments section

by coolhotdog; 1709603651; Report

lol ok sounds good

by audrey; 1709605759; Report

omg thats so wild that you mention that because one of my profs just accused me of using ai to write a response when i didnt. are they still giving you credit for your assignment?

by audrey; 1708552087; Report

Yeah, he just wants me to write my proof more symbolically than conceptually in future I think.

by Fawkes; 1708553953; Report

pretty chill so far but its definitely gonna blow up in my face soon. how about you?

by audrey; 1706016303; Report

It's been really easy so far. Feels like the calm before a storm.

by Fawkes; 1706027493; Report

exactly i feel

by audrey; 1706046475; Report

A very exhausting calm tbh.

by Fawkes; 1706641081; Report

it is no longer calm and just simply exhausting for me now

by audrey; 1706651309; Report

If there was someone following you around with a war drum, what kind of rhythm do you think they would be playing?

by Fawkes; 1707762749; Report

hmm i honestly have no idea. definitely something quite silly. someone following me all day playing a loud ass drum right behind me sound like such a nightmare tho tbh

by audrey; 1707845160; Report

nightmare? For you or for the people around you?

by Fawkes; 1707931449; Report

i was mostly referring to me, but i think it would also be for the people around me

by audrey; 1707938588; Report

sncoopby

by audrey; 1706016267; Report

?

by iason; 1704907076; Report

sleplerio

by Fawkes; 1705083215; Report

σλυπλήριο

good word

by iason; 1705086848; Report

thanks

by Fawkes; 1705088825; Report

the

by audrey; 1706016250; Report

thank yaurrr

by audrey; 1704635794; Report

indeed

by audrey; 1704635624; Report

which trig identities in particular? if it is any condolence i can still never remember the double angle trig identities despite years of using them lol. i have a trick for the pythagorean identities if youre struggling with those.

as for differentiation/integration with sin and cos, it might help to think of it in terms of the unit circle? if you think about it as (1,0) being cosx, (0,1) being sinx, (-1,0) being -cosx, and (0,-1) being -sinx, then you can just move around then circle in a clockwise direction for differentiation. for example, if you wanted to know the derivative of cosx, (1,0), you would rotate counter clockwise to the next coordinate, (0,-1), which is -sinx. you would do the counterclockwise direction for integration. this is probably much more complicated than simply memorizing the derivatives and integrals of sin and cos, but this might be a new way for you to think about it

by audrey; 1704520665; Report

all identities. i am bad. all i know is soh cah toa haha



very good point. like, i know that that's how that works (it's kind of important in electrical engineering to view stuff in a polar manner/from the perspective of the unit circle) but i guess i never internalized it haha


with both situations, memorization and i don't jive. i can remember stuff by their relations to other things, their practical applications, etc... but i cannot ever memorize anything, no matter how straightforward.... i am only glad that all my classes by this point let us use cheat sheets, otherwise i would've failed years ago.


one of the most important things i should know, especially considering my concentration/research interests is the diagrams of different transistors, and i always forget if n-type has the arrow going in or out (and same by extension for p-type). once i sit down and think about it, i remember that the arrow points in the direction of the current (which even that step requires me thinking about it) and by the time i figure out that conclusion, i have already eaten up enough time that would have allowed for anyone else to just solve it outright.


i hate timed exams.


anyway, thank you for enlightening me!

by iason; 1704522777; Report

yea i am also not a fan of timed exams. unfortunately for you (and me) there are not a lot of ways to remember them other than just memorizing a few and using them to derive others. for example, if you remember sin^2x+cos^2x=1, it's really straightforward to derive the other two pythaogorean identities by just dividing everything by sin or cos. you can derive pretty much every other trig identity as long as you know the sum formulas for cos and sin, tho im not sure how helpful that is on a timed exam. i would really encourage just taking some time to try and derive the various identities to maybe better help your understanding of where they come from so it doesnt feel like they are just some abstract formulas you have to memorize

by audrey; 1704602555; Report

real as hell, i will keep that in mind.... i really shouldn't need to do any such math any more, but if it comes up i will be sure to study with those ideas. thank you

by iason; 1704618741; Report

i think i am definitely worse than the average person

by audrey; 1704520752; Report