Wake up, summers over!
Get your hamster moving again…
On half sheet of paper…
• 1) What skills do you need to be
successful in this class?
• 2) What is algebra?
• 3) Why should we study it?
• 4) Where can it help you this year? Next
year? In 5 years?
• 5) Coming later…
Traits of an invested student
Curious: about math, about life
Interested: learn something everyday,
improve a skill, sharpen understanding
Perseverance: ability to learn and work
through complexities and frustration
without giving up
Critical thinker: improving thinking by
skillfully taking charge of the structures
inherent in thinking and imposing
intellectual standards upon them
Two schools of thought
School 1: You sit, absorb, are told how to do
everything, practice, repeat.
Advantages of this?
• easy, rote memorization, little challenge
Disadvantages of this?
• No long term retention, no independent
thought.
Two schools of thought
School 2: You are given basic knowledge,
guiding principles, and structure. You
must THINK and APPLY what you know to
solve a problem.
How is this different?
What are advantages?
• Long term retention, understanding of
connections, sense of accomplishment
Final Question
Would you rather watch someone else do
something, try it, not really understand what or
why you are doing it and not really remember it?
OR…
Would you rather struggle early on, but once you
learn it, feel a sense of accomplishment,
understanding, and have that skill ingrained so
you don’t easily forget?
Favorite Quotes:
“We have two ears and one mouth so that
we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
“Attitude and effort are non-negotiable”
“No bird soars too high, if he soars with his
own two wings”
“It is in our failures that we learn where our
future success will lie.”
When are we ever going to need this?
“What you know, you might not use.
What you don’t know, you’ll never use”
So why not prepare yourself? You have no
idea what your life is going to be like 5, 10,
15 years from now.