Author: John Quintanilla

I'm a Professor of Mathematics and a University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of North Texas. For eight years, I was co-director of Teach North Texas, UNT's program for preparing secondary teachers of mathematics and science.

On joking with students

At some point in recent years, my students lost the ability of discerning when I playfully give them a hard time. To pick just one example of many from last semester…

Student: Did you get my homework that was slid under your door last Thursday?
Me: Oh, so *that’s* what I threw in the trash on Friday.
Student: (groans) I told my friend that she should’ve put it in your mailbox. Is there anything I can do to get my homework to you?
Me: Nope. C’est la vie.

I kept this up for about a minute before telling him that I was only kidding and that I had his homework. And this is just one of several anecdotes I could relate.

I conclude that either:

  1. I’m a world-class comedic straight-man up there with Bud Abbott and “Super” Dave Osborne,
  2. I’ve now old enough to be around the age of my students’ fathers instead of their older brothers, and so the jokes that worked 10 years ago elicit a different response now, or
  3. (more likely) Students have been so conditioned by past experiences with inflexible and uncompromising professors that they react submissively when I feign unreasonableness.

Measuring terminal velocity

Using a simultaneously falling softball as a stopwatch, the terminal velocity of a whiffle ball can be obtained to surprisingly high accuracy with only common household equipment. In the January 2013 issue of College Mathematics Monthly, we describe an classroom activity that engages students in this apparently daunting task that nevertheless is tractable, using a simple model and mathematical techniques at their disposal.

Hollywood Hates Math

Dan Meyer spliced together scenes from various movies where knowledge of mathematics is denigrated. Since a big part of my job is instilling confidence in my students that they can indeed succeed in my classes, it’s a little depressing to see that I have a big opponent in popular culture.

This video has the occasional PG language and innuendo, while I prefer to keep my classes rated G to every extent possible. Some time ago, Dan was kind enough to post the original movie sources for this clip, and someday I might edit down this clip to something that I would be comfortable showing in class.

A rejoinder to “Is Algebra Necessary?”

From a terrific article “Reflections on Mathematics and Democracy” by Lynn Arthur Steen, a past president of the Mathematical Association of America.

So we face three distinct challenges:

– Addressing the many weaknesses evident in mathematical learning;

– Reducing the gulf between the traditional pre-calculus curriculum and the quantitative needs of life, work, and citizenship;

– Teaching mathematics in a way that encourages transfer—for citizenship, for career, and for further study.

I suggest that these three challenges are manifestations of a single problem, and that all three can be addressed in the same way:  by organizing the curriculum to pay greater attention to the goal of transferable knowledge and skills.

There are many ways to accomplish this, for example:

– by embedding mathematics in courses focused on applications of mathematics;

– by team-taught cross-disciplinary courses that blend mathematics with other subjects in which mathematical thinking arises (e.g., genetics, personal finance, medical technology);

– by project-focused curricula in which all school subjects are submerged into a class group project (e.g., design a solar powered car).

– by career-focused curricula in which a cohort of students focuses all their school work on particular career areas (e.g., technology, communications, or business).

Youth club sports

I’m trying to understand the economics of youth club sports, without success.

Many families pay lots of money for their children, often as young as 11, to play on select club teams. Often there is the hope that, with this training at a young age, their future college costs will be covered by an athletic scholarship.

Looking at club volleyball teams where I live, the typical price for being on a select club teams is approximately $2,000 for the academic year and perhaps the same amount of money for more intense training over the summer.

That’s $4,000 a year for maybe 8 years, or $32,000. If simply deposited in the bank, that’s enough to cover all or nearly all of 4 years of in-state tuition, room, and board at most public universities… whether or not the child is eventually good enough to play a sport in college.

I’m told that the annual costs of a premier studio for instruction in dance and music are comparable.

My conclusion: if your child loves a sport (and is really good at it), and you can see your child’s character grow through participating, and you have the financial ability for him/her to play on a select team, by all means, feel free to encourage your child in this direction. The intangible benefit of encouraging a child in finding his/her passion (if affordable by the parents) is probably immeasurable strictly in terms of dollars and cents. Just be aware that the total cost of training a future athlete via select club teams is comparable to the cost of going to college in the first place.

(Full disclaimer: growing up as a math nerd with no empirically measurable athletic ability, I had no firsthand contact with club sports when I was young.)