Chapter 14 Quiz (Day 135)

Today in Stats, we take the Chapter 14 Quiz on Illuminate. But there's one question that I don't like based on how it confuses students during the pre-quiz VNPS review session in second period:

A multiple-choice quiz has five questions and four answer choices per question. What is the probability of getting all five questions right by pure guessing?

The answer, of course, is (1/4)^5. But if entered on a calculator, the answer is 9.765625E-4. Our TI calculators switch to E-notation as soon as the answer is less than 0.001 = 1/1000, which this answer just barely is (1/1024). I'm afraid that this E-notation might confuse students.

I consider going onto Illuminate and changing the question right then and there, but I don't have time In fourth period. Instead of asking about a five-question quiz, I change it to just four questions.  At any rate, I'm glad I did the VNPS before the quiz -- it helped the students and me.

Speaking of VNPS, Fawn Nguyen wrote yesterday about a VNPS lesson for first graders:

https://www.fawnnguyen.com/teach/a-first-grade-lesson-using-vertical-whiteboards

While first grade isn't relevant to me, what matters is that Nguyen describes herself as a TOSA. I'm waiting for another teacher to be a TOSA so a job can open for me and my pink slip can be rescinded.

As for my other classes, both Calculus and Trig took their quizzes yesterday. One girl (the lone junior) told me that she knows how to find the volumes and set up the integrals on Desmos, but I didn't let her use Desmos on the quiz since it's forbidden on the actual AP exam. After the Trig quiz, we completed Section 3.3 on the unit circle.

Today is Nineday on the Eleven Calendar:

Resolution #9: We value academic instructional time.

Ironically, second period starts five minutes late today because there's a "March Madness" game during Advisory that bleeds slightly into second period -- seniors vs. teachers. I once wore Kobe Bryant's jersey, and today, of course, I wear the jersey for Kobe Bryant's successor as the Lakers star -- LeBron James (while one of my teacher teammates dons Kawhi Leonard of the Clippers). The seniors win today 5-4. (I exercise hard today -- with my luck, I'll suddenly sneeze and test positive for COVID tomorrow.)

Tomorrow is Cesar Chavez Day Observed, and so my next post will be on Monday. As I wrote before on the old blog, the existence of Chavez Day on March 31st means that there will rarely be school on April Fool's Day (and even less often starting next year, when the entire week of Chavez Day is observed as spring break -- that week will almost always contain April 1st).

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