derekbruff's blog | CIRTL Network

In-Class Ecological Footprint Data Visualization Challenge

Submitted by derekbruff on Sat, 01/14/2012 - 11:41am

Yesterday’s Math 216 activity brought together several of my favorite teaching ideas: challenge cycles, visual thinking, and mobile learning. We’re starting our unit on descriptive statistics, which usually means finding averages and standard deviations and making boxplots and histograms. We’ll get to all that, but in an effort to create a “time for telling,” I wanted to start the unit with a data visualization challenge that was just a bit beyond what the students were ready for. Read More »

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Shakespeak, a BYOD Classroom Response System

Submitted by derekbruff on Thu, 01/12/2012 - 12:00am

Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) class response systems seem to be popping up left and right these days. BYOD systems are ones in which students respond to instructor questions using some kind of mobile device (cell phone, smart phone, laptop, tablet) that they bring with them to the classroom. Read More »

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When Statistics Is Like a Wedding

Submitted by derekbruff on Mon, 01/09/2012 - 12:00am

Today was the first day of spring classes here, and I’m back in the classroom after 12 months of doing other things. I’m still doing most of those other things, too, but I’m excited to be teaching undergraduates again. What follows is a brief summary of some of the things I doing this spring in the course. Read More »

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Prezi: Substance and Style

Submitted by derekbruff on Mon, 11/28/2011 - 11:02am

There’s been some discussion on a math listserv to which I belong about the merits of Prezi as a presentation tool. The concerns about Prezi expressed on the listserv are ones I’ve seen expressed many times elsewhere, that Prezis tend to be full of flashy zooms and rotations that don’t add anything to the substance of a presentation and sometimes make audience members dizzy. I took a few minutes to make a case for Prezi on the listserv, and I thought I would share what I wrote here on the blog. Read More »