"I Hate Math"

The student that says "I hate math" probably has had bad experiences with a teacher or topic dealing with math. Most of the time, the teacher can make all the difference. But many bad teachers can cause a child to feel as though they "hated" it. A few successes and/or light bulb moments can change the whole perspective on math. I had one math class in high school that made me feel like this. No matter how hard I tried I never got it, but the next semester I had a better teacher who caught me up on what I did not know as well as teach me the new topics. I will try to encourage and teach students to love math because it was always one of my favorite topics in elementary school.

Pendulum Motion

While watching the Tennessee vs. Florida game, an announcer brought up something I have never thought of before, "Who discovered that 'Mississippi' was an accurate measurement for a second?" Reading this article made me rethink this question.  A pendulum is the most accurate measure of time while doing a science experiment. I have never put that much thought into a pendulum other than being the annoying "tick tock" on my parents' clock. This article also taught me the pendulum's accurate time measurement solved the problem of navigation. I never knew time measurement had anything to do with latitude and longitude. It is a much more complicated process than I ever imagined.

Flashlight Experiment

I chose to shine an LED flashlight in a smaller, very dark room and a semi-dark room of the same size. My roommate has a black curtain in her room and it allows no light in at all. In here, the light did not have a direct beam but brightened up the room quite a bit. I only saw where the beam ended up on the white wall opposite of the source. I could also see the dust particles floating in the path of light.  In my bedroom, there is a light that shines through the window. In this room, the light showed no direct beam. I could see the dust particles floating through the path of light in here as well. In the semi-lit room, the light shined brighter than it did in the dark room. I think this is because more light than just the flashlight was helping to light the room. This observation proved that idea #2 is not necessarily the case. The light in the room did not change whether or not a beam would show.

I also shone the light down a dark hallway. I observed that the light does escape into a doorway but not enough to light up an entire room. There was only about two or three inches of light stretching outside the hallway on both sides. Idea #4 said it depends on where you stand if you see a path of light or the source of light. I agree with this because wherever I moved, I saw a different view.

The Virtues of Not Knowing

I agree with the beginning of this passage. Teachers do tend to teach to the test and force memorization. This is not allowing the students to actually learn or use there own form of finding the answers.  I believe the process to find the answer shows more knowledge than having the correct answer.

I understand more so now why Brian is pushing us to be able to explain ourselves and the thought processes behind our answers. I never realized before that I just know things but do not really have a clear explanation on why i know it.