By the Numbers

1. Today I sent out a "Welcome!" email to each and every one of the students in my spring calculus class who meet the prereqs. In addition to giving them the information about the textbook (ISBN, etc.) I also told them that they should spend $20 over the next four weeks working on the ALEKS course called "Prep for Calculus." If they know algebra before taking my class, then we all win.


2. Maybe tomorrow I will deal with sending out a scary warning email to the students who don't meet the prereq.


3. Recently I've been getting strange phone calls. The other day a friend called me from 0000123456. Today I missed a call from Wolfram. (I Googled their number.)
   


4. I've done some preliminary number crunching about success rates in College Algebra and Precalculus. I need to do a bit more data clean-up first, like reconciling the records of the students who couldn't properly enter their student ID numbers. Once I deal with by hand the matching that the computer couldn't do, we'll see what factors predict success in these courses. So far it already looks like "being enrolled in the College of Engineering" is a factor that suggests success.