Coordinates − 22 August, 2007
(continued from day 1, day 2)
Day 3 of the new school year I introduced the 6th graders to latitude and longitude. We're planning on tracking the storms as they occur this season. But first, I needed to train some experts.
It turned out to be a bit more challenging than I would have thought.
1st and 2nd periods got it fine -- on this day, after only about 25 minutes of work, one group in 1st had three hurricanes plotted -- Dean (2007), Charley (2004), and Jeanne (2004).
5th and 6th periods had more trouble. For one thing, its the end of the day; for another, those tend to be the most interrupted periods. Parents check kids out of school. Announcements blurt out over the intercom. It turns your normal job, juggling cannonballs, into juggling flaming cannonballs.
I try to make it around to every group, but what I like to see is that they have put in a good faith effort to understand. 1st and 2nd were on board. 5th and 6th were having problems, mostly in focusing on the task.
Well, nothing works perfectly every time. I planned to spend at least two days on this, because the central concept -- graphing -- was going to play a major role this year.
Continued tomorrow.
Day 3 of the new school year I introduced the 6th graders to latitude and longitude. We're planning on tracking the storms as they occur this season. But first, I needed to train some experts.
It turned out to be a bit more challenging than I would have thought.
1st and 2nd periods got it fine -- on this day, after only about 25 minutes of work, one group in 1st had three hurricanes plotted -- Dean (2007), Charley (2004), and Jeanne (2004).
5th and 6th periods had more trouble. For one thing, its the end of the day; for another, those tend to be the most interrupted periods. Parents check kids out of school. Announcements blurt out over the intercom. It turns your normal job, juggling cannonballs, into juggling flaming cannonballs.
I try to make it around to every group, but what I like to see is that they have put in a good faith effort to understand. 1st and 2nd were on board. 5th and 6th were having problems, mostly in focusing on the task.
Well, nothing works perfectly every time. I planned to spend at least two days on this, because the central concept -- graphing -- was going to play a major role this year.
Continued tomorrow.
Comments:
edunn (August 28, 2007. 02:25am)
Sounds like a good start to me!