Where my mouth is

So, after the Small Learning Communities seminar a couple of weeks ago, I got to seriously thinking about how to hook kids in. Because, kids won't learn jack-all if they don't decide to learn it. Nick Harris, an Aussie bloke whose wife works for the Australian consulate, mentioned that back in NSW, some schools ask students about their interests, and use that to build this year's curriculum, tailored to what the students are interested in. So, literary analysis this year might be comparison between Buffy and Dracula, if the kids said "Vampires are rad, man!"

I got to thinking about how to do this in my classroom, and got an idea. When introducing a new unit, I could explain what the main objectives will be, and then offer a few examples of topics that can be used to study the math content. So, for ratio and proportion, I could say, "We're going to be studying scale, and how things at different scales are proportional, the same shape, even though they're different sizes. So, we can do this by building houses, or by building boats, or by making model rockets, or if there's some other thing you want to build, I'm open to your suggestions, too."

And, as I'm beginning to learn how to not put off good ideas, I started this on Friday. The big idea is graphing linear equations: by the end of next week, I want my students to be able to graph slope-intercept equations, including converting equations into slope-intercept form. 4th period has chosen to do this by building and playing with cars, graphing speed and slope of the ramp they're using. 6th period chose to do an economics marketplace, looking at profit and cost. 8th period decided to do TV ratings, which was a real trick to work out, but I ended up deciding to compare Nielsen rating to number of viewers (which is, of course, not quite linear, but close).

So far, it's been going well. We'll see if we hit the objectives. I was feeling slightly overwhelmed, with so many different topics to consider, but in practice, it's been really easy to do, so far. Groups have done incredibly quick work getting their materials together, and I should be getting past "the hook" and into the meat of the subject in the next two days.

Still, I might want to get back into the original plan, of something a bit more limited in scope...

Dragging my way through cool stuff

Just an update, in the week after Spring Break (which is also the last week of the quarter...)

I'm feeling utterly low-energy this week. Headaches yesterday and today, no spark of life in me, definitely in a depressive state.

Calculus is taking the 1998 AP exam this week-- the entire thing, top to bottom. I'm taking it along with them. I've made errors on 7 of the multiple choice, and left 2 of them blank (this out of 45 total questions). A decent showing on my part, though it emphasizes that this is a tough, tough test.

But the real coup this week is the design competition in my sophomore classes. Groups of three students per team have 50 popsicle sticks, 5' of string, and any amount of glue to build (1) a bridge to span an 8" gap and (2) a protective device to keep an egg from breaking with it is dropped. Both projects draw from the same materials, and teams have 3 days to design and build, before one day of testing. The bridge that holds the most weight before breaking wins, and the egg protector that drops from the highest altitude without breaking the egg wins.

This is a great, fun project, the kids are having a blast, and getting really into it-- straight to work, having some great ideas, and everything that's supposed to come from this. Still, I'm a little concerned: what's the content here? How do we ensure that a learning objective is met? Maybe a written piece, after the project is all over, to reflect on it?

Anyway, what's extra depressing is that there's all this great stuff going on in my classroom, and I'm just sort of... out of it. Okay, not entirely: I am walking the room periodically, asking some probing questions about the plans my students are making, and listening in from here, even as I write, and I'm really pleased by the conversations that are going on. Meanwhile, I'm contemplating how this will work next year, as a piece for my NBPTS certification (which is part of where my fretting about how to get to learning objectives will happen... what are the student outcomes, here? How do we assess the learning?)

In any case, here's some observations and suggestions I've come up with for myself, for next year:

Put the materials in paper bags before distributing them. Tell the students that "These are your materials". Students can choose to interpret this to include the bag (for a parachute, or a structural support) if they're clever about it...

Provide a wider variety of tools: little handheld saws (those mini-hacksaws?), files, sandpaper, various kinds of glue?

Provide an accurate sample egg for construction purposes (maybe even some sample hard-boiled eggs).

Consider doing this whole project during Shadows, as an example of why triangles are special. Maybe open with a research project (find a picture of a bridge on the internet to use as your model, write about why you chose that model, and then build the model for the competition). My concern about this is it limits creativity-- maybe open with a free-style competition, and do the tests, then later, do another competition based on reference photos, with scale blueprints. Sort of using the construction project as the pre-assessment and the written report on the second project as the post-assessment.

Now THAT sounds like high-quality stuff!

Still not enough to perk me up, much, but I'm feeling a bit better, now. And, I gotta say, I'm excited about the fact that this constructivist stuff means a LOT less of me standing in front of my class, blabbering on. I'm actually writing this DURING class, as my students come up to use the other computer to look up pictures of what other people have posted online, and work away at their projects, creating and re-creating ideas. Pretty nifty, really...