Jeff’s Blog

Sometime after the 13th of December, I went to my bank to deposit the money I’d made from tutoring and from my prep sessions. Things get incredibly busy around the end of the semester, so I hadn’t been in for a while. This meant that I had accumulated quite a lot to deposit. A few people at the bank know me and recognize me. They know I work as a tutor at the university. Some of the tellers don’t know me. I think that when I go to the ones that don’t know me, they think I’m some kind of drug dealer or something. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t list my occupation on their computer and when I deposit my wad of money and they ask where it’s from, I just smile and say “work”. I’m purposely evasive with their questions because I think it’s funny.

One of the tellers asked me if I tutored high school mathematics. I told her that I didn’t, but she was insistent that I could. Her daughter was struggling with grade 11 mathematics. So, I gave her my friend’s name.

I’m playing a trivia game now. The latest question was in the category called Acryonym Soup. The game gives an common acronym (something like brb or lmao) and players are to enter what the acronym stands for. This particular acronym was IUTHALORFH. Apparently it means “I used to have a lot of respect for him.” I’ve never heard of this in my life, but I thought it was possible that I had been out of the loop and some new acronyms had become popular without my knowledge. So, I did a Google search. There were 300 results and the links were all to different websites giving the definition of this acronym. If it’s in such popular usage, why is no one using it on their blog or their message boards without the need to define it? I think this trivia game has some wonky questions. Or else I have too much time on my hands. Or both.

The world’s most mysterious number is…pi?!?

No. Pi can’t be all that mysterious. So, I did a Google search for “most mysterious number” and the results were:

pi
7
666
9
8
?? (I think you had to pay to find out or something)
3
8
0
Phi (this is not a typo)
7
137
137
4
13
13
7

So, I guess it’s 7. Or either 8, 137 or 13. Either way, I’m disappointed - I was hoping it’d be 196.

Plank’s Paradox: By the time I’m less busy and I actually have some time off work, all of the blogs and podcasts that I’ve been meaning to read (or listen to) are also taking breaks for Christmas, too.

At least I can read/listen to older posts/podcasts.

When I set up my web domains last year, I decided to get two - one for my prep sessions and one for my tutoring. The domains were londonmathtutor.com and londonmathprep.com (you can figure out which domain went with which service). When I designed the layouts, I set them up almost identically except for the colors. My thinking was that if I did the prep sessions under my own name, people would be reluctant to sign up - in case I was just some random guy on the street trying to pass himself off as a math instructor. I thought that having a business-type name would give me credibility. Later on, I realized the opposite would probably be true. Running the prep sessions under my own name would give me credibility. Many people in the courses knew me - or at least knew a friend who knew of me. And companies who run prep sessions come across as money-hungry and apathetic towards students. So, sometime in the summer I decided that instead of using two domains, I would just use one - londonmathtutor.com. I made the switch and replaced londonmathprep.com with a generic forwarding page. There was one problem. I had set up my email to work backwards. For my email, I set up londonmathprep.com to have an email address. And any emails directed to londonmathtutor.com would be forwarded to londonmathprep.com. When I discontinued the londonmathprep.com domain, I kept this setup. I could still send outgoing emails as if they were from the londonmathtutor.com domain. So, to recap, here’s what would happen:

1. A student sends an email to jeff@londonmathtutor.com
2. The email is forwarded to jeff@londonmathprep.com
3. I read the email
4. I reply to it, changing the “from” field to jeff@londonmathtutor.com

With the semester finally over, I think I’ve managed to get a good grasp of the differences between the current courses - Math 1225, Math 1228 and Math 1229 - and the former Math 28, Math 30 and Math 31.

Math 28 was a single semester course covered the basics of Probability.

Math 30 contained a semester of Calculus and a semester of Linear Algebra.

Math 31 contained a semester of Linear Algebra & Logic and a semester of Probability.

The probability sections from Math 28 and Math 31 were identical. They covered the bulk of the first four chapters in the textbook. That probability section is now Math 1228. As far as I know the material is the same.

The Calculus section of Math 30 has been turned into Math 1225. The material is the same, except that Math 30 covered 16.1, 16.2 and 16.3 - applying calculus concepts to probability. So, Math 1225 is slightly easier than the calculus portion of Math 30 because of this omition.

The Linear Algebra sections of Math 30 and Math 31 covered different units. In Math 30, chapters 2 through 5 were covered. In Math 31, chapters 1 through 4 were covered. The linear algebra sections have been turned into Math 1229. The linear algebra portion of Math 30 was harder than Math 1229 since more advanced concepts were covered. Math 31 was also harder because, in addition to linear algebra, an extra mini-section on logic was also covered in the same semester. Math 1229 takes the material normally covered in 2/3 of a semester of Math 31 and expands it into a full semester for Math 1229.

So, it appears that the re-calibrated courses are easier than the old ones. 

Looking back even further into the past, the testing procedures were different. Last year, and the year before, tests were limited to a single topic. In Math 30, this meant either calculus or linear algebra. In Math 31, either linear algebra, or probability. The exception was the midyear exam which contained both logic and linear algebra. However, further into the past, tests regularly contained a mix of the two major topics in each course. Which goes against common sense. Problems in calculus have nothing to do with problems in linear algebra and the same is true with linear algebra and probability.

At least it seems that the courses are progressively moving towards a more logical setup. 

But there’s still more improvements that can be made. In Math 1229, the second test covered inverses. A typical question asked a student to determine the value of k for which there was (or wasn’t) an inverse. The standard method of doing this (and the first one that comes to my mind) involves using determinants. But, the test was given before determinants were even taught. So, students were left to solve these using less efficient methods. This was pretty frustrating. I just took people through a quick overview of determinants before they would normally have been taught. And we used that method for the inverse problems. 

The testing patterns have changed in Math 1225 as well. Previously, there was a test and an exam. Now there will be two tests and an exam. I’m sure that’ll bring up some surprises, too.

So, I’m trying to post this ad to Facebook:

Math 0110 Prep Session
Learn all the material you need to know to do well on your first test! September 27th, 1pm - 5pm. Room W12 (Huron College)

Pretty standard ad, I think. Then I get this email that it didn’t meet their guidelines and that they’ve change it to:

Math 0110 Prep Session
Learn all the material you need to know to do well on your first test! September 27th, 1pm - 5pm. Room W12 (Huron College).

And it needs my approval now. Notice the changes? They added a period at the end of the sentence. Their guidelines now require proper punctuation and grammar. And a single period requires my approval. Wow.

I was working on writing some formula sheets today. Whenever I write formula sheets, I look at the notes the prof has made. Usually, there’s a few good things in there that I can rewrite in a way that is more meaningful to students. So, they are talking about equations of lines. Here’s what the prof put:

There are 3 common forms of a line:

1. Standard Form
2. Point Slope Form
3. Slope Intercept Form
4. Intercept Form

Email to UWO on Aug 27:

Hello, I contacted you a few years ago about the possibility of renting a room on campus for group tutoring. At the time, I was told it was UWO Policy not to rent rooms to people who were doing tutoring and exam prep work. I’m just emailing to see if that’s still UWO Policy or if things have changed since then. Thanks.

–

Their reply on Aug 27:

The Department of Statistics runs a list of tutors. During May and August, the list is wiped clean. I checked the page yesterday to see if it had been reset so that I could add my name for the fall semester and I saw that this disclaimer had been added:

“Please discuss your fees and payment arrangements in advance, it is not advisable to allow a student to run up a large bill that they end up having difficulty paying.”

I have no idea what happened to make that disclaimer be added, but I’m really really curious.