I went in on Friday, the last day of school before the winter break, and we had a half-day with only 2nd (accelerated) and 3rd (non-accelerated) hours. I wanted to try another problem of the week (POW), and I tried the "congruent rectangles" problem that was featured in the training session with the Math Forum folks. This problem definitely looks like a math problem, so I wanted to spice it up a bit, and I began by talking about money, and then about foreign money. We briefly discussed the European Union and the Euro, and then I showed the graphic, which I superimposed 5-euro notes onto. So instead of asking the dimensions of random rectangles, I was talking about the dimensions of money. The main reason I didn't use American money was because the shape was better (or more, the students aren't familiar with the shape of Euros, so I could stretch them to make them work), but I think it also gave some valuable side information - "fun facts" to break up the math tedium.
The talk about money and Europe was actually pretty good, and the students participated and were interested. When we got to the actual problem though, the students struggled. As usual, I gave them time to notice and wonder, and some of the observations included the fact that four sideways bills are the same length as three horizontal bills - which is a very important observation for setting up the problem mathematically. After listing and discussing the noticings and wonderings, I then presented the problem and asked them to see if they could solve it. The students in both classes struggled with this. They seem to not grasp the concept of area, which is something I really expected them to understand by now. So, in both classes, I ended up walking them through how to solve it, but it was more of me doing the problem and a handful of the students paying attention and following, which is not really the goal of the POWs. I sent Annie from the Math Forum an email about this issue last week, and hopefully she'll have some insights about how to make these POWs work better for our classes.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Second POW and Rollercoaster Discussions
Last Tuesday, I came in with a three-part slideshow. The first part was to complete the "Filling Glasses" activity from last week, in which some of the classes were further along than others. The second part was a two-slide discussion on computer viruses - one of the students mentioned last week that he was interested in learning more about viruses, so I wanted to oblige him. I first discussed biological viruses and what they are and how they work, and then moved on and talked about a few different types of computer viruses. I only intended it to take a few minutes, but this discussion lasted upwards of 10 minutes in most classes. Finally, I had the "Adding Areas" problem of the week for the classes that had time left over. Second hour is shorter because of math intervention, and they had a lot to finish covering with the first POW, and so we just finished the talk on viruses when the bell rang. In third and fourth hours (non-accelerated geometry), we started the new problem of the week. They seemed attentive for the talk on viruses, but it seems like I lost them with the problems of the week. It felt less like they were doing the problem and more like I was explaining the answer to them, and this is not the goal of the problems of the week. In fourth hour I pretty much had to tell them exactly how to do this, which is exactly what the problem of the week tries to avoid. I had even put up all of the necessary equations, so it was just an algebra problem. I feel like they just aren't taking this seriously, and many of them just sit there and do no thinking or talking during the activity. It was extremely frustrating. Sixth hour went well, but we only had about 15 minutes for the POW, so we had to rush through it, and since I don't plan on returning to this problem, I essentially showed them how to do it.
This problem of the week was not nearly as successful as the first one, and I suspect is because of a combination of several factors: (1) it's not as interesting-looking as the filling glasses problem, (2) it looks like a math problem that the students might find in a textbook, and (3) I didn't relate it to anything practical that the students might see in real life. I tried very had to find an interesting problem in the POW database that relates to geometry, and this one just wasn't interesting enough to keep the students engaged.
This Tuesday, I came in a with a discussion about rollercoaster design. As I've given similar talks in the past, I started out by asking why we have rollercoasters and what designers should consider. Next, I showed a picture of the Millennium Force at Cedar Point (which showed the big hill at the very beginning, particularly the structure that holds the hill up), and I asked them what they noticed and wondered about the picture or the rollercoaster in general. As I hoped, they all mentioned something about the structure holding it up and how it's composed of many bars. I then talked about triangles and why the angles in the structure matter to the safety analysis of the rollercoaster. I then drew a part of the truss structure that consisted of six congruent triangles, and tried to walk them through how we know the triangles are congruent and how congruent triangles are helpful to the designers.
Second hour went very well, and the students were attentive and able to respond with interesting and entertaining responses. It felt like we were having a fun conversation. When I got to the talk about the congruent triangles, some of the students were able to quickly give the answers to why they were congruent. Third hour was different. Most of them seemed interested at the beginning when we were talking about rollercoasters and why we have them and cool tidbits about the rollercoasters they've been on, but once I started talking about triangles and angles, many of them zoned out. When I asked questions about why two angles are congruent, which should be very easy for them if they are following the class material, they really struggled to get the correct answers, and many more continued to drop out of being interested. Fourth hour (which is also the non-accelerated version) was actually great - there were several students who contributed and responded to my questions, and I didn't lose them quite like I lost the third-hour students when I started talking about lines and angles. I can't think of anything that I did differently, so even though they are both in the same level of geometry, there seems to be a stark difference in the way they respond to me, and I need to figure out a way to adjust accordingly. Sixth hour also went well, as the students seemed engaged and were responsive. This is a discussion that I would be very confident repeating in the future with high school students.
This problem of the week was not nearly as successful as the first one, and I suspect is because of a combination of several factors: (1) it's not as interesting-looking as the filling glasses problem, (2) it looks like a math problem that the students might find in a textbook, and (3) I didn't relate it to anything practical that the students might see in real life. I tried very had to find an interesting problem in the POW database that relates to geometry, and this one just wasn't interesting enough to keep the students engaged.
This Tuesday, I came in a with a discussion about rollercoaster design. As I've given similar talks in the past, I started out by asking why we have rollercoasters and what designers should consider. Next, I showed a picture of the Millennium Force at Cedar Point (which showed the big hill at the very beginning, particularly the structure that holds the hill up), and I asked them what they noticed and wondered about the picture or the rollercoaster in general. As I hoped, they all mentioned something about the structure holding it up and how it's composed of many bars. I then talked about triangles and why the angles in the structure matter to the safety analysis of the rollercoaster. I then drew a part of the truss structure that consisted of six congruent triangles, and tried to walk them through how we know the triangles are congruent and how congruent triangles are helpful to the designers.
Second hour went very well, and the students were attentive and able to respond with interesting and entertaining responses. It felt like we were having a fun conversation. When I got to the talk about the congruent triangles, some of the students were able to quickly give the answers to why they were congruent. Third hour was different. Most of them seemed interested at the beginning when we were talking about rollercoasters and why we have them and cool tidbits about the rollercoasters they've been on, but once I started talking about triangles and angles, many of them zoned out. When I asked questions about why two angles are congruent, which should be very easy for them if they are following the class material, they really struggled to get the correct answers, and many more continued to drop out of being interested. Fourth hour (which is also the non-accelerated version) was actually great - there were several students who contributed and responded to my questions, and I didn't lose them quite like I lost the third-hour students when I started talking about lines and angles. I can't think of anything that I did differently, so even though they are both in the same level of geometry, there seems to be a stark difference in the way they respond to me, and I need to figure out a way to adjust accordingly. Sixth hour also went well, as the students seemed engaged and were responsive. This is a discussion that I would be very confident repeating in the future with high school students.
Friday, November 20, 2009
First Problem of the Week
Last Tuesday, I brought in a talk that combined two previous talks that I've given. I started out preparing to discuss the idea of tolerance in measurements, which I discussed in Ms. Tran's geometry classes last year, and I decided to add on a section discussing nanotechnology at the beginning, which I talked about with Mr. Lancaster's class two years ago. I started by asking them what nanotechnology was and we broke it down into "nano" and "technology", and then we discussed some applications of nanotechnology in sports equipment, medical devices, and electronics. We then talked about how they are made, which requires an expensive clean room, and I discussed a company that I started as an undergrad that dealt with this. I thought that they would be interested in the fact that I started a company, but that wasn't really the case in the first class, so I cut it from the second class when I noticed that I already had low attention from the students. I then shifted the conversation to tolerance, and we talked about the use of decimal places and what they mean (e.g., what is the difference between 90 degrees and 90.0 degrees?). This led into the idea of "allowed error" or "tolerance": how much variation from the exact number we can tolerate in our design. I concluded by discussing the reasons for this and a few examples of products that have large or small tolerance.
This talk was not as successful as some previous talks. Two problems that I can identify are that I may have crammed too much into one talk (nanotechnology, startup business, and tolerance), and that I didn't have enough visual aids. Second hour (accelerated) was mostly attentive, but I could tell that there were several times when I was losing the students. Third hour was tougher, and I even skipped a few slides to get through it quicker. There were many students in third hour who were talking throughout or put their heads down. At one point, I went over toward two girls who were constantly chatting and said "can the two of you over here please be quiet?" which was followed by an exaggerated and sarcastic flinging up of the hands and, "of course, anything for you!" This is really hard to deal with - the students in this class really don't have the respect for me that some of the other classes do, and earning it back is proving to be a huge challenge. Fourth hour went better - fewer of them had their heads down, and it seemed like most of them paid attention for the whole talk. Sixth hour, as usual, went better than any of the others, and I felt like most of the students were attentive, although this talk still wasn't as exciting as some of the previous ones, so I didn't feel very much energy.
Today (Friday) I came in to make up for last week, when there was no school on Tuesday. This was our first attempt at a Problem of the Week, and Ms. Tran gave me between 20 and 40 minutes in each class to lead the students through the "Filling Glasses" problem from Drexel's Math Forum website. To start out, I passed out handouts for each table (two students in each table, and I wanted to conserve paper) that contained just the pictures associated with the problem: three glasses and four graphs, and i alos . I then went through the "think, pair, share" technique for noticing and wondering. Finally, after we had two nice lists of things that the students noticed and wondered, I posed the question: if the glasses were filled with water at a constant rate, how would the height of water in the glass change over time? Which graph corresponds to each glass? I again asked them to think, pair, share, this time giving them less time. Then, there was a bonus question, which was to draw a glass corresponding with the final graph, and at the end we reflected on what we did and how it's applicable to geometry.
In first hour, we ran out of time. We burned through 20 minutes very quickly, and while we had started discussing the answers, by the end I don't feel like the entire class was fully convinced of which answers were correct. I also didn't get to ask the bonus question (what kind of glass would correspond with the fourth graph?), nor did we get to reflect on how this technique is applicable to geometry. In third hour, the students actually participated a lot more than they normally do (there were still 2 or 3 students who put their heads down, but everyone else participated): we got through the answers to which graphs match up to each glass, and then we started to talk about what the fourth glass would look like. We didn't get to discuss that part, but a couple of people drew their guesses on the board - I took a picture of it with my cell phone so that next time we can remember what we were talking about. In fourth hour, we got through the entire problem, and they were actually quite involved throughout the activity. At the end, one of the students declared that this was the best presentation I've ever given, and many of the students agreed. It seems that this problem of the week was a great way to engage the students in the non-accelerated classes (3rd and 4th hours), which is a struggle I've had for a while. Sixth hour also went well, and I got the most active participation from them. We barely finished matching the graphs when the bell rang, so we still need to wrap up in that class next time. There was one student in the front of sixth hour who kept telling me: "I still think it's graph 4", when the rest of the class had concluded that the answer was graph 1. When I asked him to explain why, he'd say that he couldn't explain why, but he still thinks it's 4. I told him we'd talk about it later, but we ran out of time - I'm not sure if he's just busting my chops or if he legitimately doesn't understand what was going on and is afraid of talking in front of everyone, but I will try to talk to him alone next time and see what it is that he's thinking.
Over all, I think the problem of the week was a success, and I look forward to future sessions of POWs.
This talk was not as successful as some previous talks. Two problems that I can identify are that I may have crammed too much into one talk (nanotechnology, startup business, and tolerance), and that I didn't have enough visual aids. Second hour (accelerated) was mostly attentive, but I could tell that there were several times when I was losing the students. Third hour was tougher, and I even skipped a few slides to get through it quicker. There were many students in third hour who were talking throughout or put their heads down. At one point, I went over toward two girls who were constantly chatting and said "can the two of you over here please be quiet?" which was followed by an exaggerated and sarcastic flinging up of the hands and, "of course, anything for you!" This is really hard to deal with - the students in this class really don't have the respect for me that some of the other classes do, and earning it back is proving to be a huge challenge. Fourth hour went better - fewer of them had their heads down, and it seemed like most of them paid attention for the whole talk. Sixth hour, as usual, went better than any of the others, and I felt like most of the students were attentive, although this talk still wasn't as exciting as some of the previous ones, so I didn't feel very much energy.
Today (Friday) I came in to make up for last week, when there was no school on Tuesday. This was our first attempt at a Problem of the Week, and Ms. Tran gave me between 20 and 40 minutes in each class to lead the students through the "Filling Glasses" problem from Drexel's Math Forum website. To start out, I passed out handouts for each table (two students in each table, and I wanted to conserve paper) that contained just the pictures associated with the problem: three glasses and four graphs, and i alos . I then went through the "think, pair, share" technique for noticing and wondering. Finally, after we had two nice lists of things that the students noticed and wondered, I posed the question: if the glasses were filled with water at a constant rate, how would the height of water in the glass change over time? Which graph corresponds to each glass? I again asked them to think, pair, share, this time giving them less time. Then, there was a bonus question, which was to draw a glass corresponding with the final graph, and at the end we reflected on what we did and how it's applicable to geometry.
In first hour, we ran out of time. We burned through 20 minutes very quickly, and while we had started discussing the answers, by the end I don't feel like the entire class was fully convinced of which answers were correct. I also didn't get to ask the bonus question (what kind of glass would correspond with the fourth graph?), nor did we get to reflect on how this technique is applicable to geometry. In third hour, the students actually participated a lot more than they normally do (there were still 2 or 3 students who put their heads down, but everyone else participated): we got through the answers to which graphs match up to each glass, and then we started to talk about what the fourth glass would look like. We didn't get to discuss that part, but a couple of people drew their guesses on the board - I took a picture of it with my cell phone so that next time we can remember what we were talking about. In fourth hour, we got through the entire problem, and they were actually quite involved throughout the activity. At the end, one of the students declared that this was the best presentation I've ever given, and many of the students agreed. It seems that this problem of the week was a great way to engage the students in the non-accelerated classes (3rd and 4th hours), which is a struggle I've had for a while. Sixth hour also went well, and I got the most active participation from them. We barely finished matching the graphs when the bell rang, so we still need to wrap up in that class next time. There was one student in the front of sixth hour who kept telling me: "I still think it's graph 4", when the rest of the class had concluded that the answer was graph 1. When I asked him to explain why, he'd say that he couldn't explain why, but he still thinks it's 4. I told him we'd talk about it later, but we ran out of time - I'm not sure if he's just busting my chops or if he legitimately doesn't understand what was going on and is afraid of talking in front of everyone, but I will try to talk to him alone next time and see what it is that he's thinking.
Over all, I think the problem of the week was a success, and I look forward to future sessions of POWs.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Logic and Programming
Last week I came in with a talk about programming in electronics, where we discussed some of the logical arguments that are embedded in the electronics that we use. I started off by saying that the conditional statements that we've talked about so far are things that we don't control, and I gave them a few examples of topics that we've discussed and other things that are relevant to the students. I then posed the question: "What if we had complete control?" My first example was the classic game of snake, which I chose because of its relative simplicity. I showed them a video that I shot where I played through the game and asked them to think about what happens under certain conditions, and afterward I wrote several of the conditional statements that they came up with on the board. I followed this with a more complex example of a program that I wrote over the summer, where selecting a button changed a picture that was displayed. Next, I showed them a piece of the actual code and asked the students what they noticed about it. When I asked them what it meant, they were able to figure a lot of it out, so I pointed out what was an "if" and what was a "then" and where variables were set. I mentioned that this is only a tiny piece of a code, and when you are looking to code bigger things like World of Warcraft or Halo or Super Mario Brothers, there are thousands and thousands of lines of code to deal with. I ended by asking the students to talk to their neighbor (their desks are in pairs) about conditional statements in some of the electronics they use - and I put up pictures of an xbox, a laptop, an iphone, and a digital camera for inspiration. This was kind of a "pair-share" activity. After 60 seconds, I asked them to share their discussions. Many of them came up with non-programming examples of if-thens, like "if I throw my xbox, then it will break," which wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but some of them did come up with good examples. Because of this and the large amount of time it took to get through the presentation in second hour, I took out the part about the program I wrote for third and fourth hours. I think this helped keep the students in those classes more focused and significantly cut down on time.
In the first two class periods, I wrote down the if-thens from the final discussion on the whiteboard, and I asked for volunteers. When I picked on non-volunteering students, they generally didn't have answers for me. So, in the fourth and sixth hours, I told them in advance that they should have something ready to share at the end, and we went through almost all of the table pairs. Third hour was rather disappointing with the amount of interaction I got, but fourth hour went surprisingly well, perhaps because of the changes I made and perhaps because of the tone I've set in those classes during my first 6 weeks. Sixth hour also went very well - I guess I am learning through my experiences in the earlier classes to improve on the later classes. During sixth hour, a student asked if they could see the simulation that I had run to make the program that I wrote, so I showed them a few example videos from that and was able to draw another parallel with the conditional statements. I think this was a good talk, and I am happy with how it went.
Today I came in prepared to do a Problem of the Week from the Drexel Math Forum, but Ms. Tran felt that the students would fall behind if I did. She was absent today, so she had a sub pass out some notes and a handout for the students to work on in class. The students had never learned the material before, so the notes were their only guide to completing this, along with me. Most of the students chose to ask me their questions rather than look them up in the notes, so in 3rd and 4th hours I talked through some of the main points on the whiteboard. In fourth hour in particular, many of the students refused to be quiet while I did this, so I asked the students who were going to listen to come up to the front, and we went through it with a group of 8 or so students. Of course, those who weren't in that group either didn't finish the assignment or had to ask me the same questions later, but I don't know what else to do. Fourth hour got extremely rowdy, to the point that the teacher next door came in and yelled at the students, then called Mr. Brown in to talk to the students as well. I try hard not to concern myself with discipline issues, but it is very hard to not get frustrated by students who feel the need to "rap" loudly throughout the entire class and insist that they are not doing anything wrong. I think a lot of today was a waste of time for many of the students, and I will talk to Ms. Tran about dealing with this situation in the future. In sixth hour, I got everyone's attention at the beginning of class and went over the important points of the notes before passing out the worksheet for about 3-5 minutes. The students listened, and I think as a result they all seemed to finish within 15 minutes, leaving the rest of the class period open for them to socialize.
In the first two class periods, I wrote down the if-thens from the final discussion on the whiteboard, and I asked for volunteers. When I picked on non-volunteering students, they generally didn't have answers for me. So, in the fourth and sixth hours, I told them in advance that they should have something ready to share at the end, and we went through almost all of the table pairs. Third hour was rather disappointing with the amount of interaction I got, but fourth hour went surprisingly well, perhaps because of the changes I made and perhaps because of the tone I've set in those classes during my first 6 weeks. Sixth hour also went very well - I guess I am learning through my experiences in the earlier classes to improve on the later classes. During sixth hour, a student asked if they could see the simulation that I had run to make the program that I wrote, so I showed them a few example videos from that and was able to draw another parallel with the conditional statements. I think this was a good talk, and I am happy with how it went.
Today I came in prepared to do a Problem of the Week from the Drexel Math Forum, but Ms. Tran felt that the students would fall behind if I did. She was absent today, so she had a sub pass out some notes and a handout for the students to work on in class. The students had never learned the material before, so the notes were their only guide to completing this, along with me. Most of the students chose to ask me their questions rather than look them up in the notes, so in 3rd and 4th hours I talked through some of the main points on the whiteboard. In fourth hour in particular, many of the students refused to be quiet while I did this, so I asked the students who were going to listen to come up to the front, and we went through it with a group of 8 or so students. Of course, those who weren't in that group either didn't finish the assignment or had to ask me the same questions later, but I don't know what else to do. Fourth hour got extremely rowdy, to the point that the teacher next door came in and yelled at the students, then called Mr. Brown in to talk to the students as well. I try hard not to concern myself with discipline issues, but it is very hard to not get frustrated by students who feel the need to "rap" loudly throughout the entire class and insist that they are not doing anything wrong. I think a lot of today was a waste of time for many of the students, and I will talk to Ms. Tran about dealing with this situation in the future. In sixth hour, I got everyone's attention at the beginning of class and went over the important points of the notes before passing out the worksheet for about 3-5 minutes. The students listened, and I think as a result they all seemed to finish within 15 minutes, leaving the rest of the class period open for them to socialize.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
More Problem-Solving
Last week I came in with a presentation prepared, but Ms. Tran wanted to spend the whole class period working through past homework and in-class problems to help them prepare for a quiz the next day. Toward the end of each class, there was about 10-15 minutes for an in-class worksheet on conditional statements and reasoning. The students in 2nd hour are the least awake and therefore the least likely to communicate a need for help, so I tried walking around and looking over their shoulders to see what they need help with, and there was only one student who had a question that I could address. Third hour was much different - before class even started, one of the students, A, told Ms. Tran that he didn't understand the homework. She was busy, so I went over to A and asked him what he needed help with. He seemed very enthused to have my help, and I helped him walk through the first two sections of the homework assignment. Later, when the students had an in-class worksheet to do, two of the students immediately got up and came to sit by me. It seemed like they just wanted the constant reassurance about what they were doing, and I sat with them as they went through it for the first half of the time allotted. I then decided to get up and answer a few questions on the other side of the room, just to be fair. I don't think any of the students in the non-accelerated classes were able to finish the worksheet in time, but I think that I was able to help a few of them understand what they were doing. I asked them to reference their notes frequently, and showed them where they could find the information they need... as they say, "teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime." In the other courses, I did feel like I was able to help out during the in-class problems, and I think that made those particular students trust me a bit more.
At the beginning of each class today, I gave a talk that drew off the previous one about problem solving in the case of hanging curtains. I started by showing some images from the last talk and asked for someone to summarize what we discussed. I then asked the students what we did to solve the problem, and inevitably someone would say that we tried a bunch of tools. In second hour someone actually used the term "trial & error," which brought me to my next point quite nicely, which was that we used the tools that we had (in the curtain case, screwdriver, hammer, pliers; in geometry, definitions, theorems, postulates) to solve the problem. I said that this class should actually be easier than other problems that they encounter in life because they KNOW that every problem in the book can be solved using the definitions, postulates, and theorems that they are learning. Next I showed them another example of a problem, where I was helping a friend of mine move his couch out of an apartment. After we tried many times unsuccessfully to get the couch out the door (and after tearing a big hole in the wall), we decided to modify our goal. Instead of trying the get the couch out of the apartment so that he could move it into his new place, we just needed the apartment to no longer have the couch in it. So, I proceeded to show them some entertaining photos of my friend and I beating his couch apart and ripping it into many pieces. I then asked them how this problem was like solving a math problem, and I wrote their responses on the board. They initially came up with some if-then statements, which were good, but not exactly what I was looking for. I was looking for the way that we used the tools that we had to solve the problem, and how we don't always know what the outcome will be, and how we used trial & error to come to a solution, and some students even made some analogies to variables, saying that we were solving for variables. Second and sixth hours (accelerated geometry) went very well, and students in both of those classes were attentive and able to guess my next moves. Third hour was more difficult, partially because several of them got up and left to get their school ID's made right before my talk. I had a couple of students put their heads down during the talk, which isn't too bothersome when there are 30 people in the class, but when we are down to 15 students, it makes the discussion circle and opinions that we can get much more limited. Fourth hour was actually more difficult than third. There was a full classroom, and it felt like even more of the students weren't paying attention. This indicates to me that this was a poor presentation for those audiences, as it clearly did not capture the audience like the previous talks have. Some of them were clearly entertained, but I think that they were a minority. I think a big part of where I lost them was at the beginning when I tried to bring in geometry parallels. It seems like that type of discussion equates to boredom for many students, and that causes them to zone out, thereby making my job of drawing entertaining parallels to geometry for them that much harder!
During my talk, several students asked the question about how my friend had gotten the couch into the apartment if we can't get it out, and I explained that the way the stairs and doorway were situated, he was able to use gravity to wiggle it down, but when we tried to reverse it, it just didn't work. A minute or two after I moved on from this part during fourth hour, a student, S, looked at me and said "how'd you get it in?" I chose to ignore S because (1) she didn't raise her hand, and (2) I had already answered that question at least twice. She noticed that I ignored her and said: "you gonna look at me and not answer my question?" I replied, "I already answered that question," and moved on as she put her head down for the rest of the class period. I guess I could have said: "who can answer S's question for me," and then she would have felt dumb when other people had to explain it to her. I feel bad for S, but I also think that she is an example of a very common student that has been frustrating me since I started here. This is the student who feels like she doesn't have to listen to anything until she has a question of her own, and then she can interrupt everything to rudely ask her question and expect an immediate answer. When responded to negatively, she feels like the world is out to get her and she gives up on school/math. I don't know what to do about these students, and trying to deal with them makes me angry, which then perpetuates the cycle of her feeling like the world is out to get her. Ugghh!
At the beginning of each class today, I gave a talk that drew off the previous one about problem solving in the case of hanging curtains. I started by showing some images from the last talk and asked for someone to summarize what we discussed. I then asked the students what we did to solve the problem, and inevitably someone would say that we tried a bunch of tools. In second hour someone actually used the term "trial & error," which brought me to my next point quite nicely, which was that we used the tools that we had (in the curtain case, screwdriver, hammer, pliers; in geometry, definitions, theorems, postulates) to solve the problem. I said that this class should actually be easier than other problems that they encounter in life because they KNOW that every problem in the book can be solved using the definitions, postulates, and theorems that they are learning. Next I showed them another example of a problem, where I was helping a friend of mine move his couch out of an apartment. After we tried many times unsuccessfully to get the couch out the door (and after tearing a big hole in the wall), we decided to modify our goal. Instead of trying the get the couch out of the apartment so that he could move it into his new place, we just needed the apartment to no longer have the couch in it. So, I proceeded to show them some entertaining photos of my friend and I beating his couch apart and ripping it into many pieces. I then asked them how this problem was like solving a math problem, and I wrote their responses on the board. They initially came up with some if-then statements, which were good, but not exactly what I was looking for. I was looking for the way that we used the tools that we had to solve the problem, and how we don't always know what the outcome will be, and how we used trial & error to come to a solution, and some students even made some analogies to variables, saying that we were solving for variables. Second and sixth hours (accelerated geometry) went very well, and students in both of those classes were attentive and able to guess my next moves. Third hour was more difficult, partially because several of them got up and left to get their school ID's made right before my talk. I had a couple of students put their heads down during the talk, which isn't too bothersome when there are 30 people in the class, but when we are down to 15 students, it makes the discussion circle and opinions that we can get much more limited. Fourth hour was actually more difficult than third. There was a full classroom, and it felt like even more of the students weren't paying attention. This indicates to me that this was a poor presentation for those audiences, as it clearly did not capture the audience like the previous talks have. Some of them were clearly entertained, but I think that they were a minority. I think a big part of where I lost them was at the beginning when I tried to bring in geometry parallels. It seems like that type of discussion equates to boredom for many students, and that causes them to zone out, thereby making my job of drawing entertaining parallels to geometry for them that much harder!
During my talk, several students asked the question about how my friend had gotten the couch into the apartment if we can't get it out, and I explained that the way the stairs and doorway were situated, he was able to use gravity to wiggle it down, but when we tried to reverse it, it just didn't work. A minute or two after I moved on from this part during fourth hour, a student, S, looked at me and said "how'd you get it in?" I chose to ignore S because (1) she didn't raise her hand, and (2) I had already answered that question at least twice. She noticed that I ignored her and said: "you gonna look at me and not answer my question?" I replied, "I already answered that question," and moved on as she put her head down for the rest of the class period. I guess I could have said: "who can answer S's question for me," and then she would have felt dumb when other people had to explain it to her. I feel bad for S, but I also think that she is an example of a very common student that has been frustrating me since I started here. This is the student who feels like she doesn't have to listen to anything until she has a question of her own, and then she can interrupt everything to rudely ask her question and expect an immediate answer. When responded to negatively, she feels like the world is out to get her and she gives up on school/math. I don't know what to do about these students, and trying to deal with them makes me angry, which then perpetuates the cycle of her feeling like the world is out to get her. Ugghh!
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
The Finite Element Method and Problem Solving in Geometry
The last two weeks have gone well in Ms. Tran's classroom, and I am starting to feel like the students appreciate my presence. Yesterday, there were students in both of the first two classes who looked around for me at the beginning of the day to see if I was there. A highlight occurred yesterday in fourth hour just before my talk, when a student came up to me and said: "You would make a good teacher." That made me feel like I am doing good things in this classroom, and that I am getting through to at least some of the students. Last week I came in with a talk about nodal networks and finite element models, for which I recycled much of a powerpoint slideshow that I used last year, with an iteration of improvement. This week I came in with a new discussion on problem-solving, showing them an example of a real-life problem that I encountered just a few weeks ago. This will be the basis of the students' first project of the year, which I helped Ms. Tran formulate.
My talk last week was pretty successful. I had been talking with Ms. Tran the week before and asked her what topics would be good to cover. She actually remembered the talk that I gave last year around this time, which discussed nodal networks, which was something that they covered in class last year. This year, the curriculum changed, so they did not talk about nodal networks, so that was my opportunity to give them their only exposure that to the topic that they'll likely get during high school. My title slide included a figure from their assignment the previous week, which had a bunch of points connected by lines, and I told them that it was a network of nodes. I then asked them what they knew about networks of nodes, and most of them knew very little, so I broke it down into the words "node" and "network." In all of the classes, at least one person knew what a node was or could guess based on my intro slide; most of the students were able to define what a network is, and I asked them for examples of networks. Many of them came up with the phone company's definition of your "in" network, the internet, and facebook. This was great, so in each case I asked them what the nodes would be in their network; respectively, those were the individual cell phones, the computers and servers on the web, and people's profiles on facebook. I then showed them a few more examples of what I view as nodal networks, including rollercoaster truss structures, the human circulatory system, and an ipod's circuitry. I then introduced the students to finite element models, where we again broke the phrase down into individual words and then brought them together to define the phrase. I showed them an example of a Ford Taurus model with over a million elements, or nodes, and showed them how the network of nodes is useful for crash test simulations with a quick video animation. We wrapped up with a discussion on the purpose of models and why we simulate them. I thought this went fairly well - most of the students were attentive, and I noticed more students answering questions that had in the previous talk.
During Ms. Tran's lesson after my talk, there was some time for in-class problems, and for most of the classes I was able to go around and help students work through the problems. I was rather disappointed that some of the students (particularly in the non-accelerated classes) don't seem to know basic algebra, which is technically a prerequisite for this course. Not knowing how to solve problems of the form (3x+1)/2 = 5 is a real problem, and I have a feeling that the students who don't get it now will have a hard time getting it in the future, when they're fully expected to know it. Being able to get a variable by itself is so important, and it seems to me that the root of the problem is not understanding multiplication and division. There were at least two students that I was trying to help, and when time was up I still didn't feel like they understood what we were doing. I want to help them, but I get such little time with them that it is difficult to make any lasting impact. I spoke with Ms. Tran about this yesterday during the planning period, and she said that some students in the regular geometry classes actually failed algebra, and there weren't enough spots in the algebra classes, so they were placed in her geometry class. I told her that I will let her know who these students are so that she can push them to seek help outside of class, but I am still concerned about these students.
Yesterday I came in expecting time in class to help the students with in-class problems, but there was a change in plans and Ms. Tran gave a test yesterday. She told me when I came in yesterday morning that I could present for the last 15-20 minutes of each class, so I prepared my slides while the first class took their test. We had discussed this topic beforehand, when at the beginning of the year Ms. Tran asked me to help her come up with a project for the first half of the first term. I thought about it for a while, and I came up with an idea while I was helping a friend move into her new apartment. After hanging a curtain rod, we spent maybe 20 minutes trying to solve a problem that we had with a protruding bracket, and when we finally fixed it, I had a real sense of satisfaction from solving the problem. We went through several steps before finally fixing it, and I thought of this as a good example of real-life problem solving that students don't often think about during math class. I also thought that there was a good way to link this with geometry "logic," which mostly revolves around conditional statements. So I proposed to Ms. Tran that the project be to find an example of a real-life problem and discuss the steps and methods for solving it; then, the students could write 5-10 "if-then" conditional statements about the problem solving process, such as "IF this method doesn't work, THEN try this other idea."
So it wasn't a huge surprise when she asked me to do it yesterday morning, and I already had a bunch of photos prepared for it, so I sat in the back of the room and put together my powerpoint while the first class took the test. The slide show started out by defining what problem solving is and asking the students if they've ever had a problem or ever solved a problem (I may or may not have mentioned that Jay-Z had 99 problems). I also posed a question here about how problem solving relates to math, and I had an opportunity to discuss how math is really just a language that we can translate real problems into so that we can solve them. I then presented the curtain-hanging scenario, and walked the students through the three ideas that we tried before finally solving the problem, at each stage asking them for suggestions on how to fix it - they almost always came up with the same ideas that we did. I concluded by asking them to come up with some if-then statements about what I just did, and then I put a few examples up on the board. The classes got a little bit rowdy because many of my pictures were cheesy and kind of goofy, but I think because of this, more people paid attention. My first time through it, in second hour (accelerated), took a lot longer than I expected (maybe twenty minutes), but the students seemed engaged for the most part. One of the students actually gave a really good conditional statement that I hadn't thought of, and I later added to the slides: "If I don't solve the problem, then my friend is unhappy." Third hour (non-accelerated) is shorter than the others, and I only had 10 minutes to breeze through it, which rushed me quite a bit. The bell rang right before I got to the conditional statements part, but we told them to hang on one minute so I could get through it - the downside of being rushed was that I wasn't able to ask as many questions and give them time to respond. Fourth hour (non-accelerated) seemed to really get it, and I was impressed that most of them were engaged throughout and had really good answers to my questions. This was the only class where a student guessed where I was going with it before I got to the "if-then" slide, which made it go a lot quicker (too bad this didn't happen in third hour when I was rushed!). Sixth hour hadn't yet been exposed to conditional statements, so I felt like the part at the end didn't get as much feedback or response. Overall, I think this was an excellent exercise, and I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of projects the students come up with.
My talk last week was pretty successful. I had been talking with Ms. Tran the week before and asked her what topics would be good to cover. She actually remembered the talk that I gave last year around this time, which discussed nodal networks, which was something that they covered in class last year. This year, the curriculum changed, so they did not talk about nodal networks, so that was my opportunity to give them their only exposure that to the topic that they'll likely get during high school. My title slide included a figure from their assignment the previous week, which had a bunch of points connected by lines, and I told them that it was a network of nodes. I then asked them what they knew about networks of nodes, and most of them knew very little, so I broke it down into the words "node" and "network." In all of the classes, at least one person knew what a node was or could guess based on my intro slide; most of the students were able to define what a network is, and I asked them for examples of networks. Many of them came up with the phone company's definition of your "in" network, the internet, and facebook. This was great, so in each case I asked them what the nodes would be in their network; respectively, those were the individual cell phones, the computers and servers on the web, and people's profiles on facebook. I then showed them a few more examples of what I view as nodal networks, including rollercoaster truss structures, the human circulatory system, and an ipod's circuitry. I then introduced the students to finite element models, where we again broke the phrase down into individual words and then brought them together to define the phrase. I showed them an example of a Ford Taurus model with over a million elements, or nodes, and showed them how the network of nodes is useful for crash test simulations with a quick video animation. We wrapped up with a discussion on the purpose of models and why we simulate them. I thought this went fairly well - most of the students were attentive, and I noticed more students answering questions that had in the previous talk.
During Ms. Tran's lesson after my talk, there was some time for in-class problems, and for most of the classes I was able to go around and help students work through the problems. I was rather disappointed that some of the students (particularly in the non-accelerated classes) don't seem to know basic algebra, which is technically a prerequisite for this course. Not knowing how to solve problems of the form (3x+1)/2 = 5 is a real problem, and I have a feeling that the students who don't get it now will have a hard time getting it in the future, when they're fully expected to know it. Being able to get a variable by itself is so important, and it seems to me that the root of the problem is not understanding multiplication and division. There were at least two students that I was trying to help, and when time was up I still didn't feel like they understood what we were doing. I want to help them, but I get such little time with them that it is difficult to make any lasting impact. I spoke with Ms. Tran about this yesterday during the planning period, and she said that some students in the regular geometry classes actually failed algebra, and there weren't enough spots in the algebra classes, so they were placed in her geometry class. I told her that I will let her know who these students are so that she can push them to seek help outside of class, but I am still concerned about these students.
Yesterday I came in expecting time in class to help the students with in-class problems, but there was a change in plans and Ms. Tran gave a test yesterday. She told me when I came in yesterday morning that I could present for the last 15-20 minutes of each class, so I prepared my slides while the first class took their test. We had discussed this topic beforehand, when at the beginning of the year Ms. Tran asked me to help her come up with a project for the first half of the first term. I thought about it for a while, and I came up with an idea while I was helping a friend move into her new apartment. After hanging a curtain rod, we spent maybe 20 minutes trying to solve a problem that we had with a protruding bracket, and when we finally fixed it, I had a real sense of satisfaction from solving the problem. We went through several steps before finally fixing it, and I thought of this as a good example of real-life problem solving that students don't often think about during math class. I also thought that there was a good way to link this with geometry "logic," which mostly revolves around conditional statements. So I proposed to Ms. Tran that the project be to find an example of a real-life problem and discuss the steps and methods for solving it; then, the students could write 5-10 "if-then" conditional statements about the problem solving process, such as "IF this method doesn't work, THEN try this other idea."
So it wasn't a huge surprise when she asked me to do it yesterday morning, and I already had a bunch of photos prepared for it, so I sat in the back of the room and put together my powerpoint while the first class took the test. The slide show started out by defining what problem solving is and asking the students if they've ever had a problem or ever solved a problem (I may or may not have mentioned that Jay-Z had 99 problems). I also posed a question here about how problem solving relates to math, and I had an opportunity to discuss how math is really just a language that we can translate real problems into so that we can solve them. I then presented the curtain-hanging scenario, and walked the students through the three ideas that we tried before finally solving the problem, at each stage asking them for suggestions on how to fix it - they almost always came up with the same ideas that we did. I concluded by asking them to come up with some if-then statements about what I just did, and then I put a few examples up on the board. The classes got a little bit rowdy because many of my pictures were cheesy and kind of goofy, but I think because of this, more people paid attention. My first time through it, in second hour (accelerated), took a lot longer than I expected (maybe twenty minutes), but the students seemed engaged for the most part. One of the students actually gave a really good conditional statement that I hadn't thought of, and I later added to the slides: "If I don't solve the problem, then my friend is unhappy." Third hour (non-accelerated) is shorter than the others, and I only had 10 minutes to breeze through it, which rushed me quite a bit. The bell rang right before I got to the conditional statements part, but we told them to hang on one minute so I could get through it - the downside of being rushed was that I wasn't able to ask as many questions and give them time to respond. Fourth hour (non-accelerated) seemed to really get it, and I was impressed that most of them were engaged throughout and had really good answers to my questions. This was the only class where a student guessed where I was going with it before I got to the "if-then" slide, which made it go a lot quicker (too bad this didn't happen in third hour when I was rushed!). Sixth hour hadn't yet been exposed to conditional statements, so I felt like the part at the end didn't get as much feedback or response. Overall, I think this was an excellent exercise, and I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of projects the students come up with.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
First Two Weeks 09-10
This semester, Ms. Tran and I decided that it would be best if I come into four classes one day a week, and I chose Tuesdays to fit my schedule best. She has Geometry classes 3rd and 4th periods and Accelerated Geometry classes 2nd and 6th periods, so I come in for 2nd through 6th.
My first day was last Tuesday, and I came into all four classes with a quick presentation to introduce myself and explain to them what I am doing in their classroom. I began by introducing myself, and then I showed four video clips to start it off. I asked them to think about what these things have in common - they were of a rollercoaster (Millenium Force at Cedar Point), a crash test between two cars, windmills in a field, and a land mine explosion in Iraq. Much of the responses were something like "they're all fast", but I think in one class someone said "technology". Anyway, I told the classes that they are all things that I'm interested in and that I might be talking with them about throughout the semester. I then continued by introducing to them where I am from, what I do as a graduate student (many of them were shocked when I told them that I'm starting my seventh year of post-high school school, but when I told them that I got paid to go to school, that quelled many of their fears), and why I am here. I told them that I am here because I use math frequently, I want to help them understand math and problem solving, and I want to share some interesting application of geometry with them. I then introduced the field of engineering, and showed some pictures of some technological devices that I think of as fine examples of engineering. For most of the classes, I quickly introduced my research area. When I finished, I opened the floor for questions about me or about anything I talked about. Most of the questions were irrelevant to engineering and math, but I responded to all of them so to build some comfort and a free atmosphere.
I ended a little differently this time, taking a tip from a previous TF who had asked the students to write down what they want to be when they grow up and pass them up. So I told the classes: "Now I want to learn something about you," and I passed out index cards and asked them to answer the following:
1. Class period
2. Name (what you want to be called)
3. How do you feel about math?
4. What technologies interest you?
5. What do you want to be when you "grow up"?
The responses varied, and I think many of them were quite honest, which was my goal. Regarding question number three, many of them said "I hate math", but even more said "I love math", and I categorized them all and was surprised with the results: there are 22 students who dislike math, 36 students who are iffy or indifferent about math, and 41 students who like math. I always expected that most people don't like math, but I really do think they were honest, and this indicates that most of the students are here with the right intentions, which is quite encouraging. There is a wide range of professional dreams, including tattoo artists, rappers, and athletes, but also many doctors, engineers, and lawyers. I'm not quite sure how I'll use this information, but I think it can help me to make more applicable presentations and have more meaningful conversations with the students.
This week, Ms. Tran emailed me to tell me that there would be a sub, and she was just going to assign a worksheet for them to do, and I would be able to walk around and help students do the problems. I decided to forgo a powerpoint talk in order to have more time to work with the students on problems, and I will give the talk I was planning next week. So, I came into class, and the substitute actually spent about 35-40 minutes doing practice problems from the worksheet on the whiteboard. Unfortunately, that only left me with 10-15 minutes at the end of class to walk around and help students, and by that point, many of them were done or were copying others' work. In the latter case, I asked the copier which problems he/she was having problems with, and they would usually tell me and we'd walk through them together. There were a few students in each class still working on the worksheet by the end of Mr. R's (the sub) whiteboarding, and I think I was able to give those students some valuable help. However, fourth hour (non-accelerated) just completely stopped working on it, put the worksheet away, and began socializing as soon as the formal discussion ended. I don't feel like it's my place to tell the students that they need to get their homework back out and do it in front of me, nor will that facilitate the type of relationship that I want with the students, so I didn't do anything after it came to that point (I did do a lap around the class to help the few students who still had it out for an extra 5 minutes, but for the last 15 minutes of class, it was a social melee). Anyway, this day wasn't as constructive as I hoped, but I think I did what I could with the situation.
My first day was last Tuesday, and I came into all four classes with a quick presentation to introduce myself and explain to them what I am doing in their classroom. I began by introducing myself, and then I showed four video clips to start it off. I asked them to think about what these things have in common - they were of a rollercoaster (Millenium Force at Cedar Point), a crash test between two cars, windmills in a field, and a land mine explosion in Iraq. Much of the responses were something like "they're all fast", but I think in one class someone said "technology". Anyway, I told the classes that they are all things that I'm interested in and that I might be talking with them about throughout the semester. I then continued by introducing to them where I am from, what I do as a graduate student (many of them were shocked when I told them that I'm starting my seventh year of post-high school school, but when I told them that I got paid to go to school, that quelled many of their fears), and why I am here. I told them that I am here because I use math frequently, I want to help them understand math and problem solving, and I want to share some interesting application of geometry with them. I then introduced the field of engineering, and showed some pictures of some technological devices that I think of as fine examples of engineering. For most of the classes, I quickly introduced my research area. When I finished, I opened the floor for questions about me or about anything I talked about. Most of the questions were irrelevant to engineering and math, but I responded to all of them so to build some comfort and a free atmosphere.
I ended a little differently this time, taking a tip from a previous TF who had asked the students to write down what they want to be when they grow up and pass them up. So I told the classes: "Now I want to learn something about you," and I passed out index cards and asked them to answer the following:
1. Class period
2. Name (what you want to be called)
3. How do you feel about math?
4. What technologies interest you?
5. What do you want to be when you "grow up"?
The responses varied, and I think many of them were quite honest, which was my goal. Regarding question number three, many of them said "I hate math", but even more said "I love math", and I categorized them all and was surprised with the results: there are 22 students who dislike math, 36 students who are iffy or indifferent about math, and 41 students who like math. I always expected that most people don't like math, but I really do think they were honest, and this indicates that most of the students are here with the right intentions, which is quite encouraging. There is a wide range of professional dreams, including tattoo artists, rappers, and athletes, but also many doctors, engineers, and lawyers. I'm not quite sure how I'll use this information, but I think it can help me to make more applicable presentations and have more meaningful conversations with the students.
This week, Ms. Tran emailed me to tell me that there would be a sub, and she was just going to assign a worksheet for them to do, and I would be able to walk around and help students do the problems. I decided to forgo a powerpoint talk in order to have more time to work with the students on problems, and I will give the talk I was planning next week. So, I came into class, and the substitute actually spent about 35-40 minutes doing practice problems from the worksheet on the whiteboard. Unfortunately, that only left me with 10-15 minutes at the end of class to walk around and help students, and by that point, many of them were done or were copying others' work. In the latter case, I asked the copier which problems he/she was having problems with, and they would usually tell me and we'd walk through them together. There were a few students in each class still working on the worksheet by the end of Mr. R's (the sub) whiteboarding, and I think I was able to give those students some valuable help. However, fourth hour (non-accelerated) just completely stopped working on it, put the worksheet away, and began socializing as soon as the formal discussion ended. I don't feel like it's my place to tell the students that they need to get their homework back out and do it in front of me, nor will that facilitate the type of relationship that I want with the students, so I didn't do anything after it came to that point (I did do a lap around the class to help the few students who still had it out for an extra 5 minutes, but for the last 15 minutes of class, it was a social melee). Anyway, this day wasn't as constructive as I hoped, but I think I did what I could with the situation.
Monday, May 4, 2009
5/4 talks
Ms. Tran was out today, and we had a substitute teacher in the class. I still came in to give my talk, and after the talk the students watched the beginning of the movie "Stand and Deliver." I basically swapped two of the successful talks from previous weeks to the classes that had not heard them yet, so I gave the shoe talk to the Geometry classes and the explosives talk to the Algebra classes. First and second hour went very well. The students were respectful and engaged in hearing about the running shoe that my team built last year to power an iPod. Third hour is always more talkative because it's later in the day, and while they were talkative, most of them seemed interested in the talk and we got through it without much trouble.
Fifth hour (the students who are re-taking Algebra I) was a different story, and it has really become frustrating for me. I showed a video of a land mine exploding in Iraq (which was extremely successful at drawing the attention of the geometry classes), and it got the attention of a few of the guys in the class, and we talked about the research I did on explosives back at Maryland. Despite everything I tried to get their attention, there were always about 5 side conversations going on throughout the talk. These students seem to simply not care about how incredibly rude and disrespectful they are being. One student who was actively involved in a side conversation started to butt into my talk with a "question" - while I normally welcome questions, I was really bothered by her disrespect and told her that it was very rude of her to do that. As usual, she started to give excuses and claim innocence, which really just shows me how little some students understand about respect and manners. I have tried so hard with this class and sometimes it feels impossible. I don't know what I can do in the two days I have left to make a positive impact on these students, but I will think more about it once I've cooled off from this incident. Anyway, I pressed through the talk and focused on the 4 or 5 students who were actually interested in what I was talking about, and then turned them over to the sub and the movie.
Fifth hour (the students who are re-taking Algebra I) was a different story, and it has really become frustrating for me. I showed a video of a land mine exploding in Iraq (which was extremely successful at drawing the attention of the geometry classes), and it got the attention of a few of the guys in the class, and we talked about the research I did on explosives back at Maryland. Despite everything I tried to get their attention, there were always about 5 side conversations going on throughout the talk. These students seem to simply not care about how incredibly rude and disrespectful they are being. One student who was actively involved in a side conversation started to butt into my talk with a "question" - while I normally welcome questions, I was really bothered by her disrespect and told her that it was very rude of her to do that. As usual, she started to give excuses and claim innocence, which really just shows me how little some students understand about respect and manners. I have tried so hard with this class and sometimes it feels impossible. I don't know what I can do in the two days I have left to make a positive impact on these students, but I will think more about it once I've cooled off from this incident. Anyway, I pressed through the talk and focused on the 4 or 5 students who were actually interested in what I was talking about, and then turned them over to the sub and the movie.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Flying and Running
Today I came in with a talk for each of my classes. The geometry talk was about flight (airplanes, blimps, helicopters), inspired by the importance of angle of attack in wing positioning, and the fact that one of the students previously had asked about airplanes. I opened as usual by asking the basic questions: Why do we want to fly? How do blimps work? How do planes work? How much lift (upward force) do we need? How do helicopters work? The students were very attentive and many of them had some good intuition as to how these machines function. In first hour, I opened with a video of early attempts at flight, which had some funny shots of crazy almost-working flying machines. This did a decent job at grabbing their attention, and they stayed engaged throughout (which is unusual for first hour since they often seem to not be awake). In second hour I didn't have a projector, so I decided to wing it and give the talk using the whiteboard instead. Though we didn't get the video, this actually worked very well. The class was attentive and I had more participation than usual. In third hour I used a hybrid of these techniques, using the video and powerpoint for most of it, but throwing in the whiteboard for one of the concepts. This went fairly well, but they were definitely more energetic and talkative than the other classes, which led to distracting side conversations. One of the students said "that was an interesting topic" at the end, so I at least met that goal for some of the students.
I mentioned to all of my geometry classes that I only have three more weeks in their classroom, and I encouraged them to take advantage of my last four days and ask me good questions. I mentioned in second hour that I won't be here for their last week of school because I'm going to a conference in Portugal, which got them excited since they knew I had gone to Korea back in December. I said something to the effect that it's great because I don't have to pay for any of these trips, which actually got some people to ask why I am going to these places and how many more years they would need to get to where I am. This gave me an opportunity to talk more about engineering and grad school in an environment where they were already interested, which was great.
In fifth hour I brought in a brief discussion on a project I did last year (which I talked about last year in Mr. Lancaster's class) where we designed a shoe that captures energy from running to charge an iPod or other portable electronic device. The talk was very brief (5 slides including a title slide), and the title slide introduced the question "Can running charge your iPod?". The other slides discussed where we get our energy from, and potential sources of "free" energy (sun, geothermal, hydro, wind, human movement), which showed the motivation for the product. I then introduced them to the shoe and brought out and passed around the prototype, and then I asked what questions they had. Fifth hour has always been the toughest audience, but the majority of the students seemed genuinely interested and there were a couple of good questions at the end, and I think the brevity of the formal talk (powerpoint) contributed to that. Ms. Tran really liked it and asked me to talk about this project with the geometry classes next time. I was very pleased with both of these discussions.
I mentioned to all of my geometry classes that I only have three more weeks in their classroom, and I encouraged them to take advantage of my last four days and ask me good questions. I mentioned in second hour that I won't be here for their last week of school because I'm going to a conference in Portugal, which got them excited since they knew I had gone to Korea back in December. I said something to the effect that it's great because I don't have to pay for any of these trips, which actually got some people to ask why I am going to these places and how many more years they would need to get to where I am. This gave me an opportunity to talk more about engineering and grad school in an environment where they were already interested, which was great.
In fifth hour I brought in a brief discussion on a project I did last year (which I talked about last year in Mr. Lancaster's class) where we designed a shoe that captures energy from running to charge an iPod or other portable electronic device. The talk was very brief (5 slides including a title slide), and the title slide introduced the question "Can running charge your iPod?". The other slides discussed where we get our energy from, and potential sources of "free" energy (sun, geothermal, hydro, wind, human movement), which showed the motivation for the product. I then introduced them to the shoe and brought out and passed around the prototype, and then I asked what questions they had. Fifth hour has always been the toughest audience, but the majority of the students seemed genuinely interested and there were a couple of good questions at the end, and I think the brevity of the formal talk (powerpoint) contributed to that. Ms. Tran really liked it and asked me to talk about this project with the geometry classes next time. I was very pleased with both of these discussions.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Four more vehicle-related talks...
Over the last three weeks, I have given two talks each to the geometry classes and to the algebra class. In the geometry classes I first brought in a discussion about the research I did on explosives two years ago as an undergraduate. I began with a short video clip of a land mine exploding on a road in Iraq, which really caught their attention better than I've been able to all year. All three of the classes were fully engaged and listening throughout the presentation. I began by discussing Humvee safety and how the vehicles and occupants would be affected by land mines, and then asked the students how we could learn about the effects of land mines on Humvees. This eventually led us to the idea of scaled-down tests, which fits in nicely with their recent unit on proportions and ratios. From there, I discussed the scaled-down explosive testing I did in Maryland and we calculated how it was scaled down proportionally. The students were very attentive and I was very pleased with how it went.
The second talk I gave was today, and I first went through the MITE recruitment presentation to discuss the summer program and encourage them to think about it and apply. I skipped a lot of the details on the different fields of engineering because I didn't want to lose them, but in 3rd hour they asked several questions about the engineering types, so some of them were clearly interested. I passed out handouts with the website for those who were still interested. After I finished this, I went into a powerpoint that I prepared about how cars turn (handling). Following last week's success, I began with a video of a car spinning out, which caught their attention fairly well. We then discussed why a vehicle might spin out (and they all were able to come up with a lot of good answers before I said anything), and discussed the geometry of a turning car. We talked about the angles that the wheels are turning, and then the angles that the tires might be slipping against the road. I think today's talks went very well.
The algebra classes have been a different story. Two weeks ago I gave a talk on hybrid and electric vehicles, based on the interest they showed in the first week, and last week I brought in a discussion on the Michigan Solar Car team project. For both of these talks, I wanted to go through some of the math and science behind the vehicles. The first one went okay, and we calculated the difference in emissions between an all-electric Tesla Roadster and a Toyota Corolla and found that the Tesla has slightly lower emissions. I then showed them how to calculate what type of efficiency we'd need in a conventional car to equal the emissions of the Roadster, and it turned out to be around 42 mpg. We mentioned that a Prius gets higher mileage than this, so a Prius would actually be better on the environment that a Roadster (specifically with the power generation distribution in Michigan). I thought this was very interesting, and some of the students followed, but it was frustrating trying to get through the talk because there are still a lot of distractions and interruptions and overall rudeness. In the talk on the solar car, we did a calculation of how much solar panel area a normal car (Ford Taurus) would need to get the same power it has, and it turned out to be over 100 times the area it has. This actually explained a question that someone had in one of the previous lectures, when someone asked why we don't have solar-powered cars. Very few of the students seemed to listen to this talk, but in both talks they had a lot of questions at the end (some of which I had already answered during the presentation had they been listening). This frustrates me, but it also challenges me to think of ways to prepare better talks for my particular audience.
Today I did not prepare a talk for fifth hour, but they had an in-class problem set to work on, and I walked around to provide help where possible. There was an incident that sticks out in my mind where I heard a student say "I don't understand this", so I went over and asked her which problem she was having trouble with. She replied "I don't need help," and I said that I heard her say that she didn't understand something, and I am here to help with that type of problem. There may have been another exchange with her refusing help, and then she replied with "I don't want YOUR help. You don't even know me." I responded to her, saying "I don't understand why you are so rude to me," and calmly walked away. This really bothers me, because I really can't see why a student would be so rude to me, when I have shown her as much respect as possible. I guess I'll have to try again next time.
The second talk I gave was today, and I first went through the MITE recruitment presentation to discuss the summer program and encourage them to think about it and apply. I skipped a lot of the details on the different fields of engineering because I didn't want to lose them, but in 3rd hour they asked several questions about the engineering types, so some of them were clearly interested. I passed out handouts with the website for those who were still interested. After I finished this, I went into a powerpoint that I prepared about how cars turn (handling). Following last week's success, I began with a video of a car spinning out, which caught their attention fairly well. We then discussed why a vehicle might spin out (and they all were able to come up with a lot of good answers before I said anything), and discussed the geometry of a turning car. We talked about the angles that the wheels are turning, and then the angles that the tires might be slipping against the road. I think today's talks went very well.
The algebra classes have been a different story. Two weeks ago I gave a talk on hybrid and electric vehicles, based on the interest they showed in the first week, and last week I brought in a discussion on the Michigan Solar Car team project. For both of these talks, I wanted to go through some of the math and science behind the vehicles. The first one went okay, and we calculated the difference in emissions between an all-electric Tesla Roadster and a Toyota Corolla and found that the Tesla has slightly lower emissions. I then showed them how to calculate what type of efficiency we'd need in a conventional car to equal the emissions of the Roadster, and it turned out to be around 42 mpg. We mentioned that a Prius gets higher mileage than this, so a Prius would actually be better on the environment that a Roadster (specifically with the power generation distribution in Michigan). I thought this was very interesting, and some of the students followed, but it was frustrating trying to get through the talk because there are still a lot of distractions and interruptions and overall rudeness. In the talk on the solar car, we did a calculation of how much solar panel area a normal car (Ford Taurus) would need to get the same power it has, and it turned out to be over 100 times the area it has. This actually explained a question that someone had in one of the previous lectures, when someone asked why we don't have solar-powered cars. Very few of the students seemed to listen to this talk, but in both talks they had a lot of questions at the end (some of which I had already answered during the presentation had they been listening). This frustrates me, but it also challenges me to think of ways to prepare better talks for my particular audience.
Today I did not prepare a talk for fifth hour, but they had an in-class problem set to work on, and I walked around to provide help where possible. There was an incident that sticks out in my mind where I heard a student say "I don't understand this", so I went over and asked her which problem she was having trouble with. She replied "I don't need help," and I said that I heard her say that she didn't understand something, and I am here to help with that type of problem. There may have been another exchange with her refusing help, and then she replied with "I don't want YOUR help. You don't even know me." I responded to her, saying "I don't understand why you are so rude to me," and calmly walked away. This really bothers me, because I really can't see why a student would be so rude to me, when I have shown her as much respect as possible. I guess I'll have to try again next time.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
First Talks of YHS Second Term
For the last couple of weeks I did not prepare presentations, but sat on the lessons and walked around afterward to help with homework problems. I have also been trying more to learn the students' names, so it has been a good time for me to practice in my head with the seating chart to learn these. The first three hours are the same as they were last term, but since the semester change we have gotten a new fifth-hour class. This class is for students re-taking the first half of Algebra I, and they have a similar personality and mindset of last term's fifth-hour class, which was re-taking the second half of Geometry. A lot of them lack confidence in math, and they tend to get distracted easily. I hope through my individual attention, I can help many of them boost their confidence and realize their potential to do math.
This week I wanted to bring in another discussion to get them thinking about applications again, and a separate talk to formally introduce myself to the fifth-hour students. For the Geometry classes, I prepared a follow-up talk on roller coasters to remind them about what we discussed last time (the strength of triangles/trusses in structures) and bring in some new perspective. They have spent a lot of time recently learning about properties of angles and triangles, so my goal was to show them how angles can be applicable to design. I showed them a picture of the Millennium Force at Cedar Point, and zoomed into one of the truss structures that made a right triangle. In a very basic demonstration of the statics analysis, I mentioned that the weight of everything above the triangle would be coming downward onto the top joint, and we agreed that it would propagate downward through the beams. We then discussed how it would change if the angle were expanded or contracted, and concluded that it is important for engineers to take angle measurements into account to ensure the safety of such a design. I then brought up a larger truss structure and we discussed which angles were congruent (using theorems from geometry), and I mentioned why these congruent angles are useful for analyzing the structure. I brought up the idea of trigonometry and mentioned that it was useful for this type of analysis, but since they haven't learned trig yet, that might have brought about more confusion than my intention of whetting their appetite for trig. Overall, I think this discussion went very well in 2nd and 3rd hours, but 1st hour was still very quiet (and not quite awake yet).
Fifth hour went fairly well, and I used a powerpoint that I gave last term for introducing myself and briefly explaining who I am, where I'm from, and what I do. When I introduced engineering, I had a few pictures of things that are heavily influenced by mechanical engineering design, including one of a Tesla Roadster, which I explained was an electric car. This actually spurred a lot of questions from the group, and many of them were curious as to how it works, how you charge it, and the practicalities of an electric car. I was impressed with their ability to immediately identify the weaknesses of electric cars, and explained that these are the reasons why we don't see a lot of them on the road. However, I was disappointed with the way they asked the questions - many of them would try to ask questions at the same time, and they didn't listen to my responses, so I got the same questions again and again. They seemed to think that I have first hand experience with these and know every detail about their maintenance and performance, but I unfortunately had to break the news to them that I don't have $100,000 to spend on a car. Since this topic seems interesting to them, I will try to bring in a discussion centered on electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, incorporating algebra as something that designers need to use.
This week I wanted to bring in another discussion to get them thinking about applications again, and a separate talk to formally introduce myself to the fifth-hour students. For the Geometry classes, I prepared a follow-up talk on roller coasters to remind them about what we discussed last time (the strength of triangles/trusses in structures) and bring in some new perspective. They have spent a lot of time recently learning about properties of angles and triangles, so my goal was to show them how angles can be applicable to design. I showed them a picture of the Millennium Force at Cedar Point, and zoomed into one of the truss structures that made a right triangle. In a very basic demonstration of the statics analysis, I mentioned that the weight of everything above the triangle would be coming downward onto the top joint, and we agreed that it would propagate downward through the beams. We then discussed how it would change if the angle were expanded or contracted, and concluded that it is important for engineers to take angle measurements into account to ensure the safety of such a design. I then brought up a larger truss structure and we discussed which angles were congruent (using theorems from geometry), and I mentioned why these congruent angles are useful for analyzing the structure. I brought up the idea of trigonometry and mentioned that it was useful for this type of analysis, but since they haven't learned trig yet, that might have brought about more confusion than my intention of whetting their appetite for trig. Overall, I think this discussion went very well in 2nd and 3rd hours, but 1st hour was still very quiet (and not quite awake yet).
Fifth hour went fairly well, and I used a powerpoint that I gave last term for introducing myself and briefly explaining who I am, where I'm from, and what I do. When I introduced engineering, I had a few pictures of things that are heavily influenced by mechanical engineering design, including one of a Tesla Roadster, which I explained was an electric car. This actually spurred a lot of questions from the group, and many of them were curious as to how it works, how you charge it, and the practicalities of an electric car. I was impressed with their ability to immediately identify the weaknesses of electric cars, and explained that these are the reasons why we don't see a lot of them on the road. However, I was disappointed with the way they asked the questions - many of them would try to ask questions at the same time, and they didn't listen to my responses, so I got the same questions again and again. They seemed to think that I have first hand experience with these and know every detail about their maintenance and performance, but I unfortunately had to break the news to them that I don't have $100,000 to spend on a car. Since this topic seems interesting to them, I will try to bring in a discussion centered on electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, incorporating algebra as something that designers need to use.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Beginning of 2009
Last week I returned to Ypsilanti High School after their two-week winter break. I had prepared a talk about a project I did last term, but Ms. Tran hadn't planned for me to speak, so instead I helped out with the in-class review problem sets. Since I found out I would be here in the Spring semester, I asked Ms. Tran for a copy of the seating charts so that I could better learn the students' names, so I spent some time studying those and starting to put some names to the faces I've already become familiar with over the last few months. I had varied success working with the students on the problem sets. First hour was very quiet and I only had one person ask me a question, despite my walking around the room and specifically asking everyone if they needed help or had questions. In second and third hour there was a lot more questions and talking in general, so I felt more useful. This seems to be a trend, and I know it is hard to wake first hour up, but I don't quite know how to get them more into the class. Fifth hour was also tough - the same two students that didn't do the work last time also refused to do their work this time and instead chatted the entire time. When I try to address this with them, they simply ignore me, which is very frustrating for me. The other students all at least started the assignment, and many of them asked me for help.
Today I was able to give the talk I had prepared for last week, so I talked about a class I took last term - Global Product Development. I had gone to Korea as a part of this class and had to miss them for two weeks in December, and since many of them asked how my trip was when I returned, I thought it would be appropriate to fill them in. I started out by talking about Korea and asked them what they knew about the country, and then I introduced the course to them, discussing the goal to develop products in a global setting. The objective of the class was to develop products for third-world countries, so we also discussed what that meant, and what the needs of people in these countries are. I then talked about the project that my team did, and showed them a couple of videos of my project and some of my adventures in Seoul. In first hour, Ms. Tran left for most of the talk, and there was a slight distraction when one of the students opened a bag of chips and another student walked across the room to ask for some. I told him that it was very rude of him, but I didn't want to let him interrupt any more than he already had, so I pushed on through it and continued the talk. One of the videos I showed was of a meal I had in which there was live octopus, which I thought was really cool, but it turned out to be a little too distracting for second hour, and all of their questions were about the octopus rather than the class or the project. Third hour went very well, and most of the students were engaged in the discussion and asked relevant questions. I attribute this to both them being more awake and myself being more familiar with the material after already having run through it twice. Fifth hour was surprisingly very respectful and engaged - since this class is the second half of the regular geometry for students who had to retake it, they will not return for the spring semester and therefore this was my last talk with them. I told them that at the beginning, and perhaps because of that they paid attention and had minimal interruptions during my talk, and they asked good questions at the end. It was a great note to end on with them, and I'm happy with how it went. I look forward to starting the new semester with these students in two weeks.
Today I was able to give the talk I had prepared for last week, so I talked about a class I took last term - Global Product Development. I had gone to Korea as a part of this class and had to miss them for two weeks in December, and since many of them asked how my trip was when I returned, I thought it would be appropriate to fill them in. I started out by talking about Korea and asked them what they knew about the country, and then I introduced the course to them, discussing the goal to develop products in a global setting. The objective of the class was to develop products for third-world countries, so we also discussed what that meant, and what the needs of people in these countries are. I then talked about the project that my team did, and showed them a couple of videos of my project and some of my adventures in Seoul. In first hour, Ms. Tran left for most of the talk, and there was a slight distraction when one of the students opened a bag of chips and another student walked across the room to ask for some. I told him that it was very rude of him, but I didn't want to let him interrupt any more than he already had, so I pushed on through it and continued the talk. One of the videos I showed was of a meal I had in which there was live octopus, which I thought was really cool, but it turned out to be a little too distracting for second hour, and all of their questions were about the octopus rather than the class or the project. Third hour went very well, and most of the students were engaged in the discussion and asked relevant questions. I attribute this to both them being more awake and myself being more familiar with the material after already having run through it twice. Fifth hour was surprisingly very respectful and engaged - since this class is the second half of the regular geometry for students who had to retake it, they will not return for the spring semester and therefore this was my last talk with them. I told them that at the beginning, and perhaps because of that they paid attention and had minimal interruptions during my talk, and they asked good questions at the end. It was a great note to end on with them, and I'm happy with how it went. I look forward to starting the new semester with these students in two weeks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)