Bounce

In a recent post I fretted a bit about one of my sections of Calc III, which section seemed to me a bit underprepared for class this past Monday. I worried that their apparent lackadaisicalness (if that is indeed a word) regarding Problem Set 4, on which we were working in class on Monday would lead them to be unready for today's class, in which they would be presenting their solutions.

I stand corrected. That section bounced back, showing themselves up to the challenge. Every single student called on to present did so, and did so with aplomb. I was particularly impressed by Dionne's willingness to work all of the way through the dreaded #61, which asked for a proof that two non-parallel vectors in the plane span the entire plane. Dionne, one of our promising young majors, has some exposure to linear algebra and is currently enrolled in Foundations, so she's no stranger to the proof genre. With a little help from a couple of her colleagues, she beasted that problem.

Yes, they bounced back, but not before I exhorted them to keep up with their work outside of class. Don't just come ready for the problem you think you'll be presenting (padded with the one or two preceding problems for insurance); come ready to present any one of them...and ready yourself as soon as you can so that when you're offered time in class to hash out the details, you can do so without delay.

Good work, everyone! I have to admit to a bit of nervousness at running my first Moore-method class in four or five years, but so far you're all making the most of it. Thank you for that, and for all that you do.

Feedback, as ever, is appreciated.