Personal Narrative: My Calculus Class

As stated previously throughout my three years in high school I have taken a lot of math classes. This school year I took probably one of the hardest math classes I ever had. That class is AP Calculus. After taking Algebra 2/Trig and passing the state exam I was so excited because I knew the next math class I'll be taking is AP Calculus. That summer I received a pre calculus packet that I needed to complete in order to take AP Calculus in the fall. Completing the pre calculus packet wasn't any easy task for me, especially do to the fact that I was unfamiliar with the content. At the time I didn't know what a piecewise functions was or even a limit. However I used all my resources mostly the internet, and completed the pre calculus packet.

A bright red 68 loomed at the top of my test, taunting me. I stared at the number, hubbub erupting in the class around me, attempting to dissect what went wrong. The night before I had meticulously studied my notes and done countless practice problems, analyzing how to properly do them. Had I reviewed the wrong material? What had gone wrong?

Last year as a junior, my AP Calculus class and I received the opportunity to paint a mural on a wall to demonstrate our hard work throughout the year. The one catch, however, was we had to design and paint it all within fifteen days. My class and I were very motivated and began work as soon as possible. We brainstormed ideas for the design of the mural to incorporate as many calculus concepts as possible while also combining it with hidden messages that had special meaning to our class. At the same time, our goal was to make the mural fun and appealing to all by-passers. Now it was time to take our concepts, and begin the process of painting the mural. Initially, we had roughly seventeen students who could paint and help out but that number

It was difficult to organise a time when everyone was free to meet up outside of class to discuss the ongoing project. We managed to problem solve this issue by creating an online group where each member could ask questions, send through files and video chat without anyone else missing it. Because of similar reasons, my assigned task was slightly more stressful than I anticipated. The task of following up four busy people to get a final draft, checking and compiling the information from that draft and making sure there is no overlap was time consuming. In addition to this, the group needed enough time to learn the script before presenting, meaning that good planning and time management was necessary on my part. Overall, I felt that our presentation was successful. I made new friends in my field, expanded my planning and time management skills and gained new knowledge about Greek

My class system experience is somewhat unique. I think I have been in almost all class systems at one point or another. I was born in rural South Carolina, mostly cotton fields and mills. My father was in Vietnam fighting the war when i was born, we started off very poor, my parents were 17 and 19 years old. My family stayed right on the poverty line until I was around 8 years old. My father started his own business and we moved into the lower middle class. We stayed in the lower middle class until I was 20 years old. My father opened a chain of pawn shops and moved into the upper middle class, and eventually to the upper class, however I was a grown man at this point and went back to lower working class. I eventually became moderately successful

Once I got to Northview, I chose, yet again, the more difficult path and decided to waived into AP Calculus AB. I knew (or at least believed I knew) next to nothing about algebra or pre-calculus, or any of the previous pre-requisites for AB, and so again I was absolutely lost struggling to catch up with all of the Northview kids (who all seemed to have a natural ease with mathematics anyway). My first semester in AB followed the exact same pattern from the previous 5 years in math classes, but something suddenly happened that allowed me to understand everything in the curriculum with ease and let me enjoy math for once. I cannot say it was a magical change in my brain chemistry or anything of that sort, so the only other possible answer is

I decided to pick Team E’s presentation to evaluate. This team’s topic was the only one that I haven’t done some sort of research on for another class, and I felt that it was best that I picked something that I don’t really know any details about. Team E’s power point presentation was on Alzheimer’s disease. This disease was discovered in 1906 by Dr. Alois Alzheimer. He was the person who first saw the disease, and was able to notice the cognitive and behavioral degeneration in patients (Bremer, Ross, Shaw, Towery, 2012). This is a disease that is very damaging not only to the person suffering, but to

Am I chosen for Advanced Math? I could barely listen over that repeating thought and my pounding heart as my teacher began listing out the selected students. I let out the breath I was holding in as I heard my name get called out. The next day, 15 of my fellow classmates and I carried our books to the classroom down the hall and peered inside. Noticing that it was empty, we lined up in number order near the doorway. As the clock ticked by, the sound of restless kids began to mix with our nervous chatter and fill the hallway the more we eyed at the classroom. The moment we saw a figure emerge, the hallway became silent. He was of medium height but towered over us with authority. His folded arms and hard-set face demanded respect as he looked at us for a long moment before

However, at the same time it allowed for me (as well as others) to convey problems that we or others that we know have dealt with in a format that is not only acceptable, but encouraged. I enjoyed writing the dialogue scene as I have wrote many skits and mini-plays in my past before and it was nice to finally do that for a class (although it wasn’t as happy as I would have wrote my other pieces). The group presentation went rather smoothly in my opinion and part of that was how cooperative everyone in my group was. We all tried to work off of each other’s ideas and strengths and when it came time for me to present I was able to do what I typically do for all my presentations just with an added level of

All three of us had very different schedules leading up to the presentation which made it hard to meet up and complete, but I realized that I had to become a leader and get all 3 of us in a room at the same time. At the same time I realized that I had to be very patient with them because we all had different schedules and you never want to step on one of your group mates toes. Initially it was tough for us to start the paper because we had different visions on how the presentation was to look and flow but through great teamwork and leadership we came to a common ground and got the presentation done. Through this group project I learned that I love to lead people, not everyone is a natural born leader but I believe that this is one of the qualities that I was born with. I had to get the group into a room and start up a negotiation on how we were gonna start this presentation, once we got the ball rolling there was nothing that could stop us. I also realized that I am very good at doing research and it is something that I love to do. I wanted to find a topic that we could all relate to while also picking a topic that was historically significant in the educational

Ever since I was a young kid I have always loved and excelled at math. Whenever I took a standardized test I was always in the 99th percentile. That love of numbers and equations has carried over to my senior year. Next quarter I will be taking the highest math class offered by my school (multivariable calculus) as well as a statistics class and also tutoring math students for 2 periods in both algebra and calculus. With this passion for math I knew that I wanted to major in something math related. Up until this year I wasn’t sure of the exact major I wanted. That all changed when I fell in love with statistics. I asked my teacher some majors that deal with a lot of statistics and she told me about majoring in actuarial science. The more

Imagine someone backing up a dump truck, opening your head, and emptying an entire truck of mysterious things that you know nothing about inside. Sounds crazy huh? Well that’s basically what “banking education” is, and what hordes of teachers are doing. I had the chance to experience this first hand in my senior year math class. A couple of the kids in the class hated it, they thought it was too much information at once and too confusing. But the majority of us liked it and believed it to be very rewarding. We liked it because we moved faster than other classes, it forced us to rewrite our notes in our own words so that we better understood, and it taught us to work together outside the classroom, which better helped us not only succeed in the math class but also other classes and areas of life as well.

The group discussion has just passed, and it was really a hard work and challenging. There were many precious lessons I got, and, hopefully, so did with my friends. Our group was consisting of four students. As a quantity, reasonably, we had had enough power to do a better work and gained a satisfying result. As I flashed back to the group discussion, it was enriching my memories. Some were in high spirit, remarkable and enjoyable. Opposite to it, few were disappointing.

By the onset of the second team meeting, the team had a clear direction in which they wanted the project to go. During the meeting, we delegated sections of our topic to each team member. Natilee oversaw discussing the “Common Influence Tactics”. Sydney volunteered to cover the “Hard v. Soft Tactics,” section. Jinal asked to present the “How to Increase My Own Influence?”. Lastly, Tiffiany was responsible for covering the “Principles of Persuasion” area. From there, we began to discuss the medium of our presentation. We decided to use Google Slides; due to the fact it is easy to share with each other. Sydney suggested that we be familiar with our individual section before putting our information on the slides. Natilee stated that she would begin the presentation by establishing a topic slide and send everyone an invitation to join the document via Google, so that each team member could assess the project and add their information when they were ready. Jinal gave a quick reminder of what the instructor expected for the presentation while Tiffiany pointed out that the presentation should be completed before the due date in case any technical issues should arise. Before dismissing, we established the next meeting time and objective for the next part of our project.

We all certainly have to do group presentations during our student life. This method of study is vital, as “it is a successful alternative or addition to the traditional term paper. It can balance the student 's educational experiences by providing training in oral communication, interpersonal skills, and analytical thinking.” (King 1990, p.77). Therefore, it is necessary for us to reflect on what we have done and learnt through group presentations. In this essay, I would have a look back at what I experienced and learnt from the BCM110 group assignment.