Making Sense of Word Problems

In this action research study of my classroom of sixth grade mathematics, I investigated word problems. I discovered that my students did not like to try word problems because they did not understand what was being asked of them. My students also saw no reason for solving word problems or in having the ability to solve them. I used word problems that covered topics that were familiar to the students and that covered the skills necessary at the sixth grade level. I wanted to deepen their understanding of math and its importance. By having my students journal to me about the steps that they had taken along the way to solve the word problem I was able to see where confusion occurred. Consequently I was able to help clarify where my students made mistakes. Also, through writing down the steps taken, students did see more clearly where their errors took place. Each time that my students wrote their explanations to the steps that they used in solving the word problems they did solved them more easily. As I observed my students they took more time in writing their explanations and did not look at it as such a difficult task anymore.

Review of Applied Spatial Data Analysis with R by R. S. Bivand, E. J. Pebesma, and V. Gomez-Rubio

Most authors struggle to pick a title that adequately conveys all of the material covered in a book. When I first saw Applied Spatial Data Analysis with R, I expected a review of spatial statistical models and their applications in packages (libraries) from the CRAN site of R. The authors’ title is not misleading, but I was very pleasantly surprised by how deep the word “applied” is here. The first half of the book essentially covers how R handles spatial data. To some statisticians this may be boring. Do you want, or need, to know the difference between S3 and S4 classes, how spatial objects in R are organized, and how various methods work on the spatial objects? A few years ago I would have said “no,” especially to the “want” part. Just let me slap my EXCEL spreadsheet into R and run some spatial functions on it. Unfortunately, the world is not so simple, and ultimately we want to minimize effort to get all of our spatial analyses accomplished. The first half of this book certainly convinced me that some extra effort in organizing my data into certain spatial class structures makes the analysis easier and less subject to mistakes. I also admit that I found it very interesting and I learned a lot.

Nebraska Agribusiness Club 40th Annual Awards Banquet

Did you know if you look up the word "integrity" in the dictionary, the definition is Alan Moeller?

STATE REGISTRATION AND LICENSING REGULATIONS: A NEW PROGRAM (OHIO)

We enacted a bill in Ohio this year, Senate Bill 445, that has to do with the application of pesticides. It is a very wide bill as you would normally look at it with most of the meat going to come from the regulations that are presently being written into it. In other words, the framework was developed and accepted by the two houses in our state legislature and empowered the Director of Agriculture to establish the regulations or the so-called teeth to this bill. The governor signed the bill in June and it became effective in September. The committees as of this time are meeting to develop philosophies and regulations that will be promulgated and brought into hearings and sifted through, and eventually, with a target date of December of this year, (1970), brought to the Director of Agriculture's office for acceptance. There is a committee established for rodent and bird control which is very well represented by our industry here in Ohio. John Beck (Rose Exterminator Company) is the chairman of the committee, William B. Jackson (Bowling Green State University) and Robert Yaeger (Cincinnati) are also on the committee. The important feature of this new law, in terms of pest control operators, is the examinations that will be required. We operators and our service people will both be tested and licensed, if sufficient proficiency is demonstrated on the tests. For your information they use a little different terminology in the bill than we in the industry normally use. We think of an applicator in the industry as service people. In the bill an applicator is defined as an operator. Therefore in reading the law the word operator means the man who does the job, the service man. Just the reverse is true in the industry. We think of the operator as the man who owns or manages the company while these people are referred to in the bill as applicators. The Bill calls for the development of schools for the training of our people throughout the state. Those of us who are in bird control should begin to prepare ourselves to meet this request, to be available for the schooling, have our people available for the schooling, and give this program all the co-operation that we can.