Two helpful sites show us how to use a COMPASS and a STRAIGHTEDGE (ruler) to make circles inside and AROUND a triangle

AROUND a triangle...  we need Perpendicular
PERPEN  BISECTORS
is AROUND the triangle...
CLICK HERE

CIRCUM =  PERPEN

Angle Bisectors for the INSIDE of the triangle.
CLICK HERE
Inside is ANGLE bisectors...   

Teen Brain Boot Camp by Steve McCrea

SAT Brain Booster Camp  (DRAFT COURSE DESCRIPTION)

The purpose of this course is to give you:

a)      A higher score on the SAT

b)      The skills to succeed while in college and later in life.  Some people calls these “life skills” and others call them “emotional intelligence”

SAT SKILLS

The higher score on the SAT is earned by focusing on the following three areas:

Essay --  you will be asked to write several essays.  This is not done during the course.  Some students claim that they lack the self-discipline to write while they are outside the class.  In that case, time during the course can be allocated for essay writing.

Math – numerous examples of SAT style questions will be presented.  The aim is to get you to respond quickly to a variety of skills.  There are approximately 95 types of math problem.   We aim to show you all of the types.  MajorTests.com is a good place to start.

Verbal – learn a lot of words.  You will be asked to start with words on “hot lists” and FreeVocabulary.com.    Spread the Words mobile app is especially recommended.

TYPICAL HOMEWORK:  Make sentences with words from FreeVocabulary.com

Find questions for the next day (going through the previous tests and using MajorTests.com)

Using the mobile apps.

SOCIAL SKILLS

In the Social Skills side of this course, the focus is on exposing you to the skills that have been shown to be useful.  The list is flexible and instructors can add materials that give additional tips.

Automatic Negative Thoughts (and how to eliminate them with ANTeaters).

12 ways to support your brain (Dr. Amen’s list)

Readings from Daniel Pink, Thomas Friedman, Malcolm Gladwell

Know Your Type personality quiz  http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp 

Computer Skills

How to build a free website

How to create digital portfolio

How to use projects

Build a resume (to give a list of skills)

The Personal Learning Plan (PLP)

Learn how to monetize your youtube account and website

Learn how to use the power of one click -- YourNetImpact.com  

Dr. Deming’s list of 14 Points  (to understand systems)

The course materials  include

Personal Learning Plan sheets (what are your goals?)

MajorTests.com for math problems and typical verbal problems, as well as essay questions.

FreeVocabulary.com for vocabulary words.

Mobile apps, including “Spread the Words”

“12 Prescriptions for creating a brain healthy life” (Dr. Amen’s list)   http://www.amenclinics.com/cybcyb/28-change-your-brain-change-your-body/115-12-prescriptions-for-creating-a-brain-healthy-life

Readings from Daniel Pink, Thomas Friedman, Malcolm Gladwell

Know Your Type personality quiz  http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp 

Readings from Dan Pink, Malcolm Gladwell, Thomas Friedman

Wikipedia articles, such as Deming’s 14 Points and  The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People

Tips for instructors

When you read through the “teacher talk” you will see that there are easy ways to introduce each of these topics.

How to put your work into a digital portfolio.

“I’m more than a letter in the alphabet.”

Monetize your youtube account.

How to benefit from these skills  (you can share what you learn by volunteering to share with the next group of students in this course).

 Learn more  (954) 646 8246

To prepare for PERT, SAT and GRE exams, MathTV.com is a safe place to review math procedures -- Teachers show you STEP BY STEP how to PREPARE for the PERT test

If you are looking for a free way to review math, go to MathTV.com.

If you are studying for PERT, you can focus on the following topics

If you are worried about your skill-level, you can improve your math skills by looking at these videos.

If you want to try some tests, you can go to my PERT page

You can download this book
FREE (download here)

This post is dedicated to the Rescue Church in North Miami and to Gus, who found me at Broward Central Campus and told me about his plans to study at Broward College.  "I know dozens of people who are afraid to take the PERT test because they fear they will fail."  

Order of Operations

He told me, "They just need to know where to go to prepare, to learn the procedures."

For example, there is the ORDER OF OPERATIONS.
Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally
You can find the Order of Operations explained on MATHTV.com.  Look for the list on the left of the menu.

GET STARTED HERE
One of the best ways to get started is to go to take quizzes.  Find problems that you CAN'T do and take a photo.  Send the photo to me at (954) 646 8246 or to my email address TheEbookman@gmail.com.  Then I'll create a short video and post the answer on YOUTUBE

My channel:  Youtube.com/Mistermath

Notice the problems
listed here: Inequalities

 One of my students, Fernanda Fortunato, went to a website connected to a Daytona college and did EVERY MATH PROBLEM on the site.  She took notes and brought me questions and her notes are now part of a PERT workbook (available FREE to download from Scribd.com)

You can also download the file here

Here is the FREE DAYTONA WEBSITE that Fernanda used.

The challenge for many students

is to find a video that answers the SPECIFIC need ... and it can take hours to find the right video.   How do I find the right words to describe a particular problem.  

That's why I like MathTV.com -- you can look down the list of sample problems and find a problem that looks like a typical problem that you are having trouble with.

Can you cancel items on the TOP
and Bottom?  Are you FL___X__BLE?

These are typical problems on
the PERT ...

You can try the TRINOMIALS

DIFFERENCE of TWO SQUARES

I've been teaching PERT classes since 2011 and students often ask me, "Where can I go to see step-by-step explanations?"  I have placed several problems and videos on my youtube account and I encourage you to visit  "PERT MATH REVIEW STEVE MCCREA" at my Mistermath account on Youtube, .... but there are more-organized websites.

Here is the DIFFERENCE OF TWO SQUARES
teacher

Look at MathTV.com to find a SELECTION of teachers.  You don't have to listen to "him" or "her" ... you can avoid a teacher with an annoying voice.   You can select someone who explains a procedure clearly.

Yes, I love to hear students say, "I really understand this problem now.  I watched your video and the penny dropped."  However, that's just one problem.   We know that standardized tests like SAT and PERT require LOTS of different problems and the best thing a teacher can do is recommend MathTV.com

You can also go to KhanAcademy.com and sign up for their tutorials.

Here is a 10-minute video about the Order of Operations

FOR ADVANCED STUDENTS
If you want to push yourself, connect with KhanAcademy.com with your Facebook account.   then you can win "prizes" ...  I have earned over 60,000 points.

Students in Highland Park High School in Los Angeles use art in school to personalize their learning

The key appears to be the Personal Learning Plan, where the goals of the student are captured.



In Broward, we have the following idea:

We ask our students to develop a Personal Learning Plan ("What do you want to learn?") and a Digital Portfolio ("Show us what you have learned") as well as a Personal Digital Library ("Here are ebooks, videos and poems that are important to me."").  Eventually the students will have a resume that lists the skills and experience that they will bring to future projects.   do a search on "teen brain boot camp broward" and see what we're doing in Florida to personalize learning


Take a moment and click on this video


Here's another video about the brain

I encourage my students to try the Magoosh GRE Prep Video Tour

The program is clear, the videos are easy to watch and well organized, and the explanations are thorough.


I'm a fan.

Steve McCrea
Instructor
GRE Prep coach
Continuing Education Department (sign up for our classes at Broward.edu)
Broward College
Fort Lauderdale FL  
(unsolicited testimonial)

Three Things for Students to do: (1) Learn more words at FreeVocabulary.com; (2) Prepare for tests at FloridaTestPrep.com and (3) Keep in touch with old teachers (it's a good exercise)

(1) Learn more words 
One of the best ways to prepare for university is to study words.  You can find a good list of words at FreeVocabulary.com.

Here is a technique for "killing words that you know"  (the last line of the video is "killing the words that you don't know."   The correct sentence is "you are killing the words that you know, leaving the words that you don't know."

  (2) Prepare for tests at FloridaTestPrep.com and learn some techniques at Transform-Education.com and TransformTeaching.org.
There are many things that teachers and students can learn from each other.

(3) Keep in touch with old teachers (it's a good exercise)
When I move to another school, I tell students that they are NOT losing a teacher.  They are gaining another teacher (the next teacher).  You can often find a teacher by looking for a YouTube channel that the teacher maintains.

I recently left a school in Florida.  I met 182 students and saw their work.  I hope each of them will take time to contact me in the future.   I am happy to continue to give advice if they send me math exercises. 

We had a special class in my school in Florida.  We said five things in our classes:

(a)  we're here to prepare for the future.  We are "practicing to be adults."  We don't ask permission to leave the room.  We say, "I'll be back in five minutes."... the way adults tell each other.

(b) We are here to stimulate blood flow in our heads.     
When we learn new instructions, we stimulate blood flow to the brain.  When we repeat actions and when we do activities that are known, then blood flow to the brain decreases.  See the work by Daniel Amen in youtube.

(c) Courage comes from the soul within...
It's a poem by Edgar Guest and we say it to make us stronger. 

(d) The purpose of education is... to see a world in a grain of sand....  it's the poem by William Blake...

send tips to TheEbookman@gmail.com

(e)  The musician's approach to academics:  practice, practice, practice, practice.... to master the mechanics of the academic work.  Usually I ask students to UNDERSTAND a procedure.   But I don't want to bore my students, so I usually give them no more than three exercises...  Now I know that it is better to get more and more practice... Richard E. Clark talks about the need to "automate" the procedures.

We want to do three boring things each class.   As adults, we know that doing the boring things are part of the musician's approach to academics.  I have learned from Alfred de la Rosa that the Musician's approach will lead to mastery.


You can send comments to TheEbookman@gmail.com

And remember...  the power of one click.  you can recommend some videos and websites.  You have "net" impact.  www.YourNetImpact.com

The following information might go over the heads of my students, but I hope someday they will return and look at it.

Watch Dr. Clark's talk and listen particularly to these sections of his six-minute talk...

Here are the key phrases

Dr. Clark's warning to teachers:   We teachers need to help students automate their
knowledge -- and repeated practice is part of the solution.
"Fully guided instruction" is described in the article
written by Dr. Clark, Kirschner and Sweller in the Jan. 2012
issue of American Educator

You can learn more by going to this YOUTUBE

aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/spring2012/Clark.pdf

Click here to get more information about our dancers

Click on the Miami Arts Charter School Dancers

It has abeen a pleasure and delight


we practice being adults.

we worked freely (than in other classes)

we could use the computers