i like my students and my students like me :) (yay)

so as mentioned several times already, this week was the most challenging week in my calc class, both for me to teach and for the students to understand. during class we did tons of problems on related rates (section 3.7) but we only got to hit on one question from section 3.8 (linear approximation and error analysis). i had tons of students in my office both yesterday afternoon and today asking good questions, and last night i came home to tons of emails asking for help on their webwork. (each week they have about a dozen problems due by midnight on thursday that are graded by computer). i spent so much time yacking and typing hints that i didn't get around to this until about 11:30 last night after the email load had died down, but last night i sent this out to all my students:

> This won't get out in time to be useful for WeBWorK, but in my quest to
> update the "useful links" on my webpage for the class:
> http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~lpudwell/math135-f05.html
> I couldn't find much online on the material in 3.8
>
> Since we didn't cover much of it in class and there seem to be a lot of
> common questions, one of the links on the class webpage is now:
> http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~lpudwell/teach/error.pdf
>
> Even if you've finished the webwork, if you're still feeling a little hazy
> about 3.8, this is a little bit of my commentary on it. I typed it up
> quickly, so hopefully the backwards quotation marks don't bother you ;)
> Otherwise, hopefully it explains the different types of problems clearly
> and puts a common thread between them. And hopefully it'll help you
> figure out 3.8 long before the next exam. :) Let me know if you have
> comments or questions about it.
>
> Good luck!
>
> Lara
>
>

if you're a math person, my pdf probably makes you cringe. i could have been more careful with my texing up so that the quotes aren't backwards, and the delta x \to 0 is actually UNDER the "lim", and i could have been more precise and less chatty, but it was late, and i was trying to type how i would explain it to my students at the board. they have the book. the book can be precise and perfectly type set. i'm just trying to write up something that's useful.

anyhow, this morning, i got the following email:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lara,

Thank you so much for your summary on section 3.7 and 3.8
It was extremely clear and really very helpful. I did spend a lot of time
on that section and was able to all the webwork (struggled a bit), but
reading your summary now, makes it a whole lot clearer.

Thank you so much for all that you are doing.... you are a fantastic Math
teacher (if I haven't told you this earlier :-))

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

along with a couple similar emails.

this makes me feel good. i really DO want them to do well, and even on the crappiest of weeks, when i see large numbers of my students actually trying and taking advantage of the extra stuff i put out there for them instead of just giving up and not asking questions, that really does make me happy. :)

and next week is about using derivatives to find maxs and mins, so it just HAS to be better, right? :)

the end.