Day 14: Checking in

Ok, so I missed a few in there.  Back on it though.

AP CSA
Looking back at last year, it was a rocky start.  This year, I feel like I know what my students' dont know which is a blessing and a curse.  I am realizing I am taking for granted a lot of the things that are BRAND NEW to students.

The start in processing was good over all, the switch to BlueJ is a little rocky.  At the same time we switched to BlueJ, I introduced functions and I think students think BlueJ is bad because functions are confusing, but honestly their Processing code was a hot mess without functions.  So... maybe I need to go back there and connect some dots for students.

Like last year, I am pushing our first test back a bit.  At this point, we have covered simple conditionals, the math class, and today we did some String methods.  Students are working in PracticeIt and struggling a bit with the exercises.  Looking back at last year, the self-checks are probably necessary to be little confidence boosters for students.

I have had like 6 kids drop from my larger class of (formerly) 36 students.  None from my smaller class of 25 students.  Funny how that works.  Unfortunately, even being down 6 kids in my large class has helped make supporting students easier.  It makes me sad that 6 students had to experience failure for me to be able to help the other students.  I wish our class sizes were smaller.

Having rid the class from the "flipped" mode, I am finding instruction tricky - we do a lot of code alongs, but the table IMMEDIATELY in front of me is the table that gets all the attention.  I really need to either A) Get mobile with a laptop or B) get a standing desk.

I am also learning I am getting really good at debugging - there is tons of mis-capitalization and missing curly brackets.  That's essentially 99% of the mistakes.

AP CSP
Today we did the DDoS attack lesson.  It went fine - I added the HTTP lesson in on the same day.  My faciltiator skills are coming in handy in these classes.  I have one class that LOVES to journal and another that LOVES to talk.  We make it work - first hour is journaling constantly, second hour is talking constantly.  Love it.

Geometry
I feel a bit like a first year teacher with this group again.  I tried getting away from cold calling, but it isn't working.  SO, my new plan is to do popsicle sticks but the plan is that I only use them AFTER they have had a chance to talk to their neighbor.   The turn and talks aren't being productive now, and I think having greater accountability will help them be a bit more productive.

Also in geometry today, I gave students work time which was MASSIVELY wasted by some students.  That made me really mad because I eliminated my plans to give students time to work together and instead they wasted it.  New plan for that is that students need to stay in their seats during work time.

One Good Thing
Teaching CSP feels like home to me.