5.3. Journal: April 22, 2002

"This isn't right. This isn't even wrong."--Wolfgang Pauli

Three cheers for STAR testing!

(Silence.)

Yeah, I thought so too. The kids came in saying things like, "My brain hurts, do we have to do anything hard today?" or "Reading comprehension takes too long" or "What are you talking about? That stuff's easy!" Most of them looked rather glazed.

On a brighter note, Stephanie Decker came for reciprocal observations--a bit of a last-minute thing due to scheduling issues on both ends. I can't wait to see her English class. (Something that isn't math!) She introduced herself to the class, which by now is inured to having (apparently) random people waltz in and out.

I'd forgotten yet again how long it takes them to prepare for presentations, then actually give them. I shortened the chess group's assignment slightly, as I went overboard in the instructions. Oops. Maybe in that mythical five years' time I'll have this all figured out, assuming I ever get to teach the same topic two years in a row.

I just knew students were going to zone out somewhat during each others' presentations. Let's be honest here. Do I always pay attention to others' presentations, even when I'm putting on my attentive face? Nah. I can't focus on the human voice for very long (unless, strangely, it's a history lecture).

Now, the usual modus operandi is to have group 1 comment on group 2, group 2 comment on group 3, and so on down the line. This only limits the problem, as in that case people will only really wake up for the group for which they have to write comments (and sometimes not even then).

I could have everyone comment on everyone else, but then you have the paradoxical problem of, well, an analogue of the Kitty Genovese syndrome: people don't feel as culpable, and I can't check accountability easily for everyone in the room. You might say that the current setup is a compromise-of-sorts.

In any case, I started sensing that people were getting confused but not asking questions for clarifications (it can be embarrassing, and sometimes questions take a while to formulate anyway) or zoning out, so after those questions that did emerge, I asked some random student in the audience to name a point using the coordinate system that was just presented. D'you know what, they didn't have a clue...so I made the group explain again, and the person try again. That worked okay, though I really should come up with something more systematic.

Comments are generally getting better with each iteration, especially since (surprise, surprise) I write comments on the comments. I do wish I'd had a better plan to scaffolding. I need to start collecting "good" examples of student comments. Specificity seems to be especially difficult, and who can blame them? I mean, when's the last time most people have had to write specific comments on a math presentation?

I also take this activity, despite its flaws, as proof that you can indeed use games to teach something other than game theory and probability...and teach something meaningful, at that. There's a reason why (in the West anyway) Descartes' introduction of analytical geometry was a significant innovation. People recorded games of go before the video camera was invented.

After the presentations, I had just enough time to introduce the basic ideas of polar coordinate notation by pretending to be a submarine. (No, really.) Students then had the opportunity to get started on the homework, as I knew there was going to be some source of confusion somewhere. Unfortunately, lack of experience means my guesses as to where it'll appear are generally off by pi radians. (I can't think of any reason to confuse the kids further with a new means of angle measurement, and the ones who are taking math next year--i.e. not graduating or giving up--will probably get to see it in Trigonometry next year.)

As predicted, questions emerged: negative angle measures, and angle measures above 360 degrees. I answered those as they came up around the room, and the knowledge seemed to be percolating into the general consciousness. We'll see.

Copyright © 2002 Yoon Ha Lee <requiescat@cityofveils.com>
Last updated on 20 May 2002