Day 99: Computational Thinking in Geometry

Geometry

Yesterday I found a stack of colored pencils taped together... I was not happy about it.  Students misused time and resources yesterday.  Today I showed them what I found, explained that ONE student did that, but the class as a whole could have benefited from more focus, AND that I expect today to be better.  It was.

SO, I saw an opportunity to do a computational thinking activity in geometry.  Because we are not testing on 30-60-90 and 45-45-90 triangles, I saw an opportunity to incorporate CT into class.

Special right triangles can be a unit where we apply the same rules in 100 different ways.  That is the WORST part about math.  Sometimes it takes creative thinking, but most of it is plug and chug. 

Originally, I thought students could make a Scratch program to help a user find the missing sides of their special right triangle.  BUT, that is a big jump.  Some of my students have never done Scratch before.  I was going to show them a "mini" program in hopes that would be enough, but even that seemed like a big jump.  Here was what I wanted to show them:

I decided to start with flow charts first.  I showed students this video:

I love this video so much.  Most students don't watch this show, but I think if nothing else, the video helps transition the class to thinking about flow charts.

Then I asked them to make a flow chart to determine if a triangle is a right, acute, or obtuse triangle.  Here is what they came up with.

Overall, pretty good!  I like that some students thought to ask "is it a triangle" first.  Most people stuck with simple yes/no questions, which is fine, but I think I could have pushed them to think, what other questions you could ask to streamline the process.

I was going to show them the program I created and connect it to their flowcharts, and I think you could do that.  You could make different programs for the different flowcharts to compare how the program would work differently - it could be a cool lesson!  But, that wasn't the goal for the day....

Then we went to 45-45-90 triangles.  The were asked to make a flow chart to determine the missing sides of a 45-45-90 triangle.  Here are some examples:

Some students were pretty stumped, but it created a good problem for them to think through in a different way.

We ran out of time, so we didn't get to transition to Scratch but I am glad we left that out.  At the end, most students felt successful - everyone had SOMETHING written down and felt like they could think in a different way.  I think moving to Scratch would have made some students really excited and engaged, but others would feel left out.  If I had another day, I would try to do the program in class, but the PLC is moving on to new content tomorrow, so... I will too. 

I could see bringing this back for when we cover SohCahToa later on.


AP CSP

Projects continued.  I did bring up some of the things I wrote about in my blog yesterday.  I didn't have students ask me those questions in class.  I had 2 students come in during our school-wide study hall to work on their projects.

A few other areas of opportunities I see:

• Students not understanding the scope of variables.
• In general control of variables seems to be tricky - doing x + 10 inside a call to setPosition won't change the value of x.  I used the anaology of a variable being a "box" and you can get things from the box or add things to the box etc.

In general, collaboration in hour 2 seems to be a win.  Most students are working with partners (as a required) and are experiencing success.  I have also started writing my "tips" on post it notes and then giving them to students as a "takeaway".  That seems to help too.  

Hour 1 is still working more independently and I think that will show in their projects.  I probably need to figure out how to do "feedback" tonight.

AP CSA

Students tested on the FRQ.

One Good Thing

In general, I was excited to be able to try something new in Geometry.  I had never done this before with students and it was clearly "computational thinking" with a low floor - every student was able to do it.  I think I could raise the ceiling by asking students to develop their own questions that might be solved by an algorithm, and then let them make flow charts for those.

Day 98: Trying to perfect projects

AP CSP

Day 98 - Oops I did it again - I got two of the same class on different tasks.  I noticed my first hour was really not sure how to do much of anything in app lab.  Even simple things like event handlers were a struggle for them.  In their defense, it had been a while.  Also, we have had bad weather all week making my first hour barely half there at the start of the hour.  SO partner work just fell apart.  For this reason I decided to do "ColorSleuth" as a class first to model the process of chipping away at a task.  ColorSlueth took 2 days for the class to do. 

My other hour I asked to rate on a scale from 0 to 5 how they were feeling about their projects.  I got a lot of 5s ("get out of my way, I have this") and a few 3s ("I am not sure about this, I need some help but I can do it") and nothing below a 3 really.  So, I decided to let them work.  That seemed to be a good decision.  I think we need to talk about the following:

• Refactoring code.  We should be looking for repetitive code and starting to put that into a function.  I don't see many students writing functions.
• Why "studentInput4" == 10 doesn't work.  Students see UI elements as variables.  I get that they see that a UI may contain information you want, but you need to GET that information from the element.  I also want to stress that variables may be a better way to get that information.
• Yes, you need to have some element of newness to your game.  Students are making games where they get asked the same 3 questions and are just making TONS of screens (one for each question, one for each answer, etc).  That isn't a game... that's not fun.

I still need to think about how to use/incorporate feedback for this project. 

AP CSA

I went over student quizzes.  This was a longer unit so I gave a quiz on polymorphism which was a good thing.  I caught a few student misconceptions especially around constructors.  We also did a lot of Kahoot to build vocabulary. 

Today they took a MC test on Polymorphism.  Tomorrow is FRQ.  Then we are done with the hardest unit of the year, IMO!

Geometry

Rough day for Geometry.  A lot of distracted behavior.  Not malicious behavior, just squirrely.

I did interactive notes for special right triangles.  It was like herding cats

A dark picture of the notes we took

.

I wanted to do an interactive practice activity with students but many students were uncomfortable with their problems I gave them.  So, we did a mini version of that today.  Tomorrow we are going to finish up 45-45-90 and then I think I am going to give them some VERY structured practice.  It is not my favorite, but it was tough to get any momentum today.  The structure can build in momentum for the hour, I hope. 

One Good Thing

The drive home wasn't bad. 

Day 95: Figuring out the project for CSP

CSP

Well - I dropped the ball here.  We had bad roads which meant that students showed up late first hour which made it difficult to get started.  In my effort to procrastinate, I had students develop extensions for the math app I showed and then also brainstorm ideas for themes/skills.  Then we went around the room and listed their ideas on the board.  That was a really good move!  The diversity of ideas was great!

Here's what they came up with:

How could the programmer improve this app?

• Make a penalty for getting something wrong
• Add different functions other than addition
• When you get to the "you win screen", it could automatically reset
• Add a number of lives (and a losing screen)
• Clearer directions (with objective)
• Icon pop up when you get it correct to make it more clear
• Add a time limit
• If the player makes a mistake, make the rocket go down. 

THEN, I was kinda freaking out about students not having partners.  I intentionally grouped students but then so many students were gone that any "intentionally" was gone.  SO I told students they needed to co-plan with another student, but starting Friday (after 2 days of work time) they could do individual projects if they wanted.

I also feel like broadening it to "skill" practice instead of "math practice" was a bad idea.  Students wanted to practice Spanish or do trivia which is better suited for a list rather than variables... I think for this group I might do a random lesson with lists to help out those who are interested.

My 2nd hour I restricted it to "math"so I think that was helpful.

Co-planning was important for collaboration - I saw a lot of students having good discussions around that.  We will see as tomorrow progresses.  I wish we were on bigger screens to help students see eachother's work.

AP CSA

Students did a quiz today and then worked on two FRQs.

Geometry

I took students down to the commons to demonstrate the mirror activity for similar triangles.  The rest of the time they worked on homework.  I think it was a good idea to demo it the day before (before students had mirrors or tape measures in their hands)

Day 92: Partners - when? How?

AP CSP 

We submitted the explore yesterday.  Today we did U5L8 on if statements.  I thought about adding booleans to the notebooks, but opted for an oral explanation in class instead.  I showed students some boolean expressions and asked them what it meant.  I gave them some true and false ones. 

For example, I gave them a set like this:

1. 3 > 2;
2. 3<=3;
3. 5<=3;
4. 6 == 6;
5. 7 != 7;
6. 3 != 7;
7. "hey"=="hey";
8. "Hey" == "hey";

I showed != too and thought about && and || but thought that might be too much.  From there I let them work individually or in pairs on the programming levels.  I suggested that the skip the videos and readings since I went over that in class. 

This level is supposed to take 80 minutes and covers some things about drop downs too.  I asked students to finish through 14 (right before drop downs).  Some students got pretty close to finishing the whole thing.

For the most part, students worked individually.   Those who worked together had good conversations.

I did have a few kids drop from first semester which, I don't love, but I do love the extra physical space now in the room.  It allows me to physically sit next to students who are "stuck" (more realistically, they are a combination of stuck and distracted - they get a little stuck and prefer to be distracted than stuck).

I made new seating charts based on students perceived comfort with programming. 

I had students rank themseleves on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being "I am struggling here" and 5 being "I need more of a challenge".  I had very few 1s and 2s but I also wonder if that is a function of some of our building culture.   Maybe it is accurate.  Hard to tell.

TBH, I don't think it matters which it is.  I am more interested in how they perceive themselves.  I made a seating chart to pair people who felt that their abilities were similar.

Tomorrow we start a project.  I went back and forth on forcing them to collaborate.  I just don't know what to do.  Part of me wants to say "students are mature enough to choose what they want to do" and another part of me is thinking "my job as a teacher is to provide them with new experiences that challenge them".  I don't know what is right.  I am pro-student choice, but I also know that some students may not feel comfortable finding a partner themselves and by assigning partners, they don't have to think about that.

SO... Interestingly enough, on this same survey one student said "I like working alone because I can work on my own pace" - this was without any mention of "partner work" - clearly she felt strongly enough about this to mention it without any prompting. 

Right now I am leaning toward partner work.  I think I can give them more choices later.  I could see asking students to work together for the first 3 days and then letting them go independent on the last two... we will see...

AP CSA
Students are working on the customer lab.  Students are getting stuck on the compareTo and equals method, but I think that the inheritance part is going well.

Geometry
We did a ton of reflection today using Hagel's reflection form.  I know that it went better than simply handing back homework checks with an "any questions" ending.  It took about half the hour. 

One good thing
I am enjoying geometry.  It is nice.

Day 91(?): After 4 snow days in a row...

AP CSP

One of my favorite pieces of this curriculum is all the unplugged lessons. I was with a facilitator who called it the “secret sauce” of the curriculum, which I love!

When we get deep into unit 5, I sometimes overlook the unplugged lessons un-intentionally. Today I did "if statements unplugged" from code.org with the class and it went pretty well. Here were some changes I made to the lesson:

• I taped a 5x5 grid on the floor and BEFORE giving students the the packets I put the code for the first example up on the board and had one student act as the “robot” and another student stand in the location of the “barrier”. Together we went line-by-line through the code. I think the visual of my hand “highlighting” the line we were on.
• In my second hour, I only gave students ONE copy of the worksheet per elbow-buddy-pair. That increased collaboration in the class as well.
• Finally, at the end I took a few students’ papers and put them under the document camera to show their hand written code. I then had two other students come to the front and act as the barriers/robots on the grid. From there we acted out the students’ code. We even had students try to “break” the algorithm by placing the barrier in different spots. It made for a nice whole-class-closure moment.

I thought about adding the "boolean game"  but honestly, we used pretty much the whole class hour for this task.

AP CSA

Today I had students create a UML class diagram for a law firm.  I need to find something that more students can relate to.  Too many students couldn't name what kinds of employees work at a law firm. It was a good way to re-introduce some UML with students after a long break.  Then students worked on practice it.

Geometry

Today I had students do 4 HARD proofs on half sheets of paper of different colors.  Students did one of the 4 at their table.  Then they made them into paper airplanes and we threw them around the classroom.  Students then found a sheet of paper of a different color and then found a friend with the same color as them.  Then they needed to fix their proofs and choose the "best" of the two which then we went over in class.

The proofs were a bit too hard for students... 

One Good Thing

I got a flat tire this morning, BUT the good thing was that one of my co-workers was able to take me to and from school which I was thankful for.