What I Learned: Point-slope formula

Probably the biggest thing college did for me was in the area of math refresher. Ashamed to say I had let my math skills slip mightily over the years.

I know I probably learned this formula in high school but since there was a 30-year gap for me between high school and college, I guess I plumb forgot it!

The point-slope formula (also known as the slope-intercept equation) was the very first thing I learned in remedial math class. Those of us who failed the math assessment during student orientation had to take this extra class designed to get us up to speed before taking real college math.

First day of class Dr. Jessica Knapp (who looks nothing like a math teacher, by the way!) brought stacks and stacks of styrofoam cups and passed out maybe 10 or 12 cups to each group of 2 or 3 students. Our task was to construct a formula that would tell her how high the stack was. And the formula had to work even when she combined two of the stacks.

Some of the students got out their trusty ruler, measured one of the cups, and multiplied that by the number of cups. Okay, okay, I almost did the same thing. But then I noticed another measurement we needed to have. The distance between the lip of the first cup and the lip of the second.

So you really need TWO measurements in this formula. One will be used just once, and the other will be repeated as many times as you have cups. This is called the point-slope formula: y = mx + b

y is the height of the entire stack
m is the number of cups
x is the height of the lip
b is the height of the first cup below the lip

So the height of the stack is 12 (cups) x .5 (half an inch) + 4 (inches)

I can’t tell you how many times over the course of my four year college career this formula popped up. Over and over and over again - in economics, finance, statistics - everywhere. Very useful formula! I think it's magic in its simplicity.

Next phase coming up!

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All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. -Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)
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As you may have guessed, my college career is over! Even though I "walked" (graduated) in May, I still had two general education classes to finish up in the summer. That's done so just waiting for them to officially issue the degree. Somewhat anticlimactic! It's strange to think there's whole new crop of freshmen eagerly anticipating their first taste of college - and they're all FOUR YEARS YOUNGER than the toddlers in my class!

So the door is closing on the school phase of my life. Turns out it is also closing on the retirement/leisure phase - I start my first accounting job next week! Thankfully it is only part time and probably temporary. After four years of primarily being home, it will be difficult to have to report to work every day again. But I'm looking forward to finally learning how accounting works in real life. Turns out college accounting courses only touch the surface of a wide array of topics. It takes real job experience before most of it makes sense.

My new company is in residential and commercial property management - mostly in Arizona, but branching out to other states. I'll start out in Accounts Receivable but they promised I will learn a lot about the other facets of accounting, too. Having only worked as a secretary for a state government-owned university, the public sector is a giant blind spot for me. I'm looking forward to learning a lot!

At a recent family reunion, a very astute cousin asked me some interesting questions about my college experience. She got me to thinking about the key things I learned so I'll try to post some observations in the next few weeks in case you find them interesting, too.

Is it over yet?

This semester has long ago worn out its welcome! And I still have a major assignment in each class due this week. Just one final exam, though, thank goodness. It has been a good semester, but once that grade card starts to fill up with completed scores, the itch to finish it off is almost unbearable. Get done already!

As part of the preceptor role in the Business Communications class, I acted as moderator for one of 20 rooms full of dapperly dressed Juniors ready with their big Case Competition presentations. Six teams of 4-6 students were assigned to my room and made PowerPoint presentations to a panel of local executives. This year's case was GEICO insurance company, who asked them to give ideas on how to reach and retain young people such as themselves. Some had creative ideas and some not-so-creative - but it was fun and I was glad to avoid presenting this year. Moderator I can do!

In the midst of this end-of-semester angst, my hubby snagged himself a modest promotion which requires showing up for work about 1,400 miles from Tucson! So the rush to get him ready has somewhat interfered with my school work. Now that he is packed off to Idaho, though, there is much to do before I am finally awarded grades for this long semester (don't much care what grades they are at this point!). Then I will have an 8-day break before winter session and Microeconomics looms. I think a quick trip to Idaho might just be the escape I need!

I have Office Hours!

http://tinyurl.com/2c6fe2m

Okay, technically just HOUR (singular), but still... As mentioned, I'm a teaching assistant (preceptor) for the Business Communication class I took last spring. This means I can attend class without doing the homework! I'm just there to help out if the students need me. It's a large class of 29 students but of course not all of them show up on any given day. (Never figured out how or why they do that. Life is so much easier if you just attend class. But then I'm not their mother, so...)

Anyhow, preceptors are required to staff the Help Desk one hour a week; mine is Wednesdays, noon to 1pm. Turns out it is a pretty good time to reread the chapter for 2pm Accounting class. I can count on one hand the number of students who have dropped in - let's see... one, two, yup, that would be THREE in, what, seven weeks? But a few of them have emailed me their papers, too, so I guess that counts.

The more interesting part of preceptor-ing has been helping the prof with grading. This was one of my goals - to speed him up a bit with the grading process. Last semester he was pretty slow at releasing grades on stuff we'd turned in weeks before. So far I think I've failed in that goal, but at least I've maybe helped him adjust to having two classes to grade where last semester he was teaching only one. (In his defense, he also has a full-time "real" job, plus a two-year-old son at home!)

Papers are typed using the student's choice of word processing program then uploaded electronically to a service called Turnitin.com. This service checks the paper for plagiarism against literally billions of sources, including student papers from prior and current semesters at this and many other universities. In about 5 minutes per paper, it returns an "originality score" as a percentage of the total paper. The grader can view the paper in its original form on-screen with the "plagiarized" bits highlighted and identified as to source. We can also apply comments directly to the on-screen paper to suggest grammar corrections or make other recommendations. This has forced me to relearn some grammar and basic writing rules to explain WHY the student's choice might be incorrect.

Eller College's standard Business Writing Rubric emphasizes: Critical thinking (audience, purpose, context), logic/reasoning (claim or assertion, idea unity and integrity, supporting evidence), structural coherence (internal logic, transitions, language use), information design (format, visual design, professionalism), and error interference (credibility, grammar, punctuation). The rubric is activated on the paper itself and the grader selects a high or low target for each of the five areas. The combined score is applied to the points for that assignment and the result is their grade.

Of course I'm not doing any actual grading (apparently I need a PhD for that!) but Dr. Liers will use my comments on the papers to supplement his own comments and my work will help him apply a grade. The papers I'm "grading" are business letters in final draft form which the students will then revise and resubmit as part of their "portfolio" at the end of the semester.

The business writing "Boot Camp" consists of three business letters: standard ("routine"), negative message (or "bad news"), and persuasive. Topics center on a case study; this semester it's the issue of genetically engineered salmon currently under review by the FDA. (More info: http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/PublicHealthFocus/ucm224089.htm) As a fictional intern at SeafoodSource.com, an industry news source (a real company following the hearings), the student crafts letters for signature by his or her "boss" and creates the "transmittal email" to the boss summarizing the content of their attached letter. This is something most of them will be involved in doing when they become gainfully employed in a couple of years.

While some students have surprised me with their grasp of the assignments, most of them are painfully unprepared for this style of writing. They overuse superlatives and cliches, and too often it's clear they haven't thought through the assignment at all - they've just started writing (probably at midnight before it's due). The Persuasive Letter assignment clarifies they are to pick three points for elaboration to convince the reader. If they would just DO that, it would be a lot easier to grade! Instead they regurgitate facts unrelated to their points - and then their points (if they have them) are introduced only in the summary paragraph at the end! Sigh.

The big Writing Assessment comes in early November. They will be given a couple pages of background information on an issue one day prior, which they can read and annotate in preparation for class. In class they will be handed their assignment (one of the letter styles - my guess is "negative message") and they will have about an hour to craft their letter and submit it to Turnitin.com at the end of class. Irrespective of their grade on anything else this semester, they must pass this writing assessment with 80% or higher. Failing students must enroll in an additional 2-credit lab prior to graduation.

This brings me to the second part of my preceptor duties. Next week I will shift my focus to the lab of students who failed the writing assessment in prior semesters. Typically (I've heard) these are international students struggling with English as their second language. I'm looking forward to it because they are often the more serious kids who want to learn. Recalling my own experience many eons ago as a 20-year-old in France helps give me a tiny bit of perspective. I have nothing but admiration for these kids' courage - attending college in a foreign language. As I understand it, there is no real "grade" to achieve in this lab. Once the student has completed it, they are awarded the grade they earned in the earlier semester.

Meanwhile, my other classes are going well. Learning a lot, enjoying the subjects. Met last week with my advisor for "degree check" and I'm right on target for the big day in May 2011. Woohoo!!

Hmmm, this is old hat!

Well, not entirely, but this is the first semester that I haven’t felt anxiety, wondering what will come next and whether I will be able to manage it all. Prior semesters always had a new element… new experience, new subject matter, new college, new schedule... Well, some of that is still present here at the beginning of my senior year. For one thing, my classes this semester all begin at 2:00 pm or later! After six semesters of morning classes, I took the opportunity to give this a try. Gives me what seems like tons of time for homework in the mornings when my brain is fresh. Still working out a timetable but expect to get into that familiar rhythm soon. Classes are new, of course, and professors, but there is a calmer feeling this time. I’ve been through the worst (Financial Accounting 1 & 2!), and have nearly 80% of my courses behind me. It’s feeling very comfortable now. I will make it! I will graduate on time. And I will enjoy these last two semesters – for the most part! The unknown parts aren’t so scary anymore. I have that “been there, done that” feeling. It feels great.

One of my courses this semester, “Integrating Business Fundamentals with Ethics and Law,” has a twist that I wish every course offered. Dr. Cummins teaches in a regular classroom, but records it live on WebEx. So I can “attend” at home by joining the class on computer! She can see who is “present” and we can use the chat feature to ask questions. She answers as though we are sitting right there in the classroom. The only time we must attend in person is for exams, however I do want to experience it at least once from the classroom side. She authored the textbook, and is funny, engaging, and perfect for this method of teaching. Class sessions are stored for viewing and re-viewing whenever we wish. This would have been very useful for some of those really difficult courses.

My other class is Accounting Information Systems in which I expect to learn all the things I was doing wrong when I tried to develop Access databases for my old job! I knew there were supposed to be complex relationships between all the tables, but I just didn’t understand how to make them work. Day two of class and I’m already elbow deep in relational databases. Right up my alley!

At the end of last semester my Business Communications professor asked if I would consider being a teaching assistant (preceptor) for the same class this semester. I agreed, so that rounds out my schedule. I’ll attend most classes and assist students with all the same assignments I completed last Spring. I don’t really need the credit hours, but it seemed like an interesting experience and a way to get to know Dr. Liers a bit better. He’s a professional writer and you just never know when you'll need that kind of assistance down the road.

So my next 15 weeks are set! By Christmas, I'll be a senior-and-a-half, and have just two upper division classes remaining before graduation in May. Yay!