Day 21 - 22: Testing, text compression, good things

AP CSA

On day 21 I wanted to play review games, but students needed more time for labs.  On day 22 we took our first test of the year.  I checked with students on day 21 and everyone was feeling good about it.  The class average on the test was 85%, which isn't bad.  There was also a typo, so I will probably exclude that question.

Before the test we played a quick kahoot.  While I don't like that Kahoot is so focused on time and being quick, I do like how it keeps the pace of the class moving - it is a good mix between student-think-time and then "lets discuss" time.  The multiple choice test was 27 questions long and took students about a half hour.  Tomorrow we do the free response section.

AP CSP

Yesterday was the last of student presentations.  We had about 25 mintues left so I had students start the Bits and Bytes worksheet.  That is a great one to assign as homework since it doesn't NEED to be done in class.  The collaboration piece isn't essential.

Today we did the text compression lesson which I love.  Last year I think I squeezed this into one lesson.  Since students liked it so much, this year I wanted to break it into two lessons.  It just isn't quite long enough.  I think for a flow to this lesson, I like having everyone try doing the first song together and see what our max compression rate is.   Then, divide the class into sections to try the others (except for the Aaaaaa one) and then debrief it.

Concepts

We did two more days of exercises. I just realize how much language hinder's students ability to do math.  I see this on quizzes all the time.  I don't really know what the right amount of support is.  For systems of equations, students are telling me that the "solution" to the system is y = 3x + 2 ... They don't see that the solution should be a point.  So, if I tell students your answer should look like (x, y), I think they could do the math to get there.  But, does that "count" as doing math?  It seems like they don't understand what a solution means in context although we have spent a TON of time on it.

I think MEA week we are going to do an ACT practice week.  I am interested in seeing how that goes.

One Good Thing

Today I have a few good things:

• A student came to me and said, "sorry I acted so immaturely 3 years ago".  It made me smile since this kid and I did butt heads a lot but I he was a fun student.  It also goes to show you need to wait a LONG time as a teacher before you get any props. 
• Another student was reminiscing about CSP and talked about how great it was with other students.  Also, at CSTA, I realized, that instead of having a CSP -> CSA -> Projects path way, I could totally just let students go from CSP to a projects class.  That's kinda exciting to me.
• During the Kahoot, one of my girls was on the leader board, she fell to third because she got one wrong.  I said something along the lines of "bummer" and she shrugged her shoulders and said, "well I still learned something, that's whats really important".  Sometimes I think I don't give my high achievers enough credit for actually having a love of learning.  Sure, some have a love of getting As (not learning), but it is cool to have someone this young "get it".