[Music] hey there my name is Dr Marissa May I'm super excited to have you with me in this course for this term now we're going to take a look at some of the things that are going to help you be successful in our course so first of all I'd like to introduce myself like I said my name is Dr Marissa May and a couple of math facts about me that you might find interesting number five I have five children I have three girls and then two boys and the oldest is 2 3 and the youngest is 12 so probably have been through every single math class with one of my children at some point in time so I've we've had a lot of experiences there second number that's important is 25 I've been teaching math for 25 years taught all the way from sixth grade math to college calculus 3 which one's my favorite I'm not going to pick out one a lot of them have been super fun so in 30 years I've been playing the piano now I'm not one of those people that plays classic anything like that I just play for my church every week um but I find that piano is very relaxing so maybe you play an instrument and you find it to be relaxing too we probably could talk about that let's jump into some things that I think are going to help you be successful in this course so first thing is the message board now if you've been with our school long you know that the message board is where we store all the extra stuff so that's the videos the tip tips the here's the alternate assignment that's going to make your life so much simpler yeah that's where we're going to put all of those things so I encourage you to make sure you've got the message board bookmarked so it's super easy for you to find every time you sit down to work on our class secondly I have a YouTube channel where I put all of the videos that I create for you and I do like to create my own videos so you want to go ahead and subscribe to the channel That way you get notification every time that a new video is post it and I have lots of good videos planned for you on top of the ones that are already available on my channel third the Desmos graphing calculator why because it's free I love any good tool that is free and so this is one that I encourage you to make sure you have a bookmark right there with the message board so you can use it on any and all of our lessons it's going to be a lifesaver for sure and the last tool I'll say is the landing page for each lesson now the landing page is the very first screen you see when you click on the lesson I'm going to have a plan for you on that landing page so usually I'll have a video that I've created I aim for my videos to be less than 10 minutes because I don't like a video to be longer than 10 minutes then I'll have our tools to help you in that lesson I'll have all of those links so maybe that looks like a template for the sample word maybe that looks like the Desmos graphing calculator any of the tools I think that you should use on that lesson I'll have those linked there and then I'll have what I call the next steps so maybe um my lesson would go okay watch the video that I have and then after that go and do this these practices problems and then go and do the quick check so it's basically watch the video and then here are your next steps these are the things I think you should go over and these are the things that I think you should practice with and then look at the assessment or the uh quick check in that lesson so all of that's going to happen on the landing page page that's the first slide you see when you click on a lesson so here's a couple of reminders every day that you sit down to do math lessons be sure and read the landing page this is going to help you to prioritize your work so you know instead of just scrolling through slide after slide after slide these are things that I think are super important for you and that you will help you to understand the concept in the lesson and then make sure you've got your Desmos graphing calculator in the course Message Board bookmark on your browser so that they're easy to find when you get ready to work on math each day now what are some tools or some things that successful students do not just in our math class but pretty much any math class well one of them is they practice math every day see math is an acquired skill so it's going to be something that you're going to have to practice each and every day now practice can look like 10 minutes practice can look like five problems practice does not have have to look like hours upon hours upon hours okay if we do it every day then I'm more conditioned to be able to understand that concept so commit to practice every day with math show your work now I get a lot of push back on showing your work and I'll be honest with you some problems don't need work shown I'll be honest some problems we ask for the work to be shown so that you can demonstrate your understanding of the concept so here's where I draw the line when the instructions say show your work then points are allotted for the worksh if the instructions do not say show your work then don't show your work okay so watch your instructions carefully that's going to let you know when you need to show those attend live lessons or watch the recording we all have busy schedules so to think that you're going to be able to come to every single live lesson that I have I just don't think that's um you know feasible so just watch the recordings remember those videos I talked about on the landing page those are going to be important as well remember I try to keep them under 10 minutes so 10 minutes watch the video take good notes so that you know exactly what's going on in the lesson if you have questions come to our open Office hours this is where I'm going to be available for you to come in ask your question get the help that you need I'm going to make sure that all the live lesson times as well as the open Office hours are on your planner so not only do you know when I'm available but you have the link to get into that room as well so be sure to check out your planner if you're like oh I just need some help when is Dr May available it's going to be on your planner and then finally call me if you need help I am happy to help but I'm going to let you in on a little tip text me gets a better not a better a faster response so if you want to text me I will see if I can answer via text if not I'll say hey can I call you around 2 o'cl today and we can talk about this a little further or whenever is available in mine and your schedule so um shoot me a text if you want to do that or if we need to follow up with a phone call we'll definitely do that hey friends I'm super excited to be working with you this term we're going to have a lot to learn you and I both are going to learn together and hopefully along the way we'll figure out this math course I'm excited looking forward to it and hope to see you soon bye for now [Music]