The class on January 22nd was an unsettling experience. The students were being walked through a quiz that they had taken on the Tuesday prior to this class. They had all done really badly in that quiz. It was a very basic quiz on reviewing variance and made Jackie revisit her planned scheduling of the chapters. The quiz revealed a lot of "holes" in their earlier learning.
The entire time was spent in going over the quiz and ten the last 20 minutes were allotted to doing homework. Homework not being done is one of the root causes why it is hard for Jackie to ensure that the students get enough practice in basic simulation techniques. Modeling the problem and then converting it to "numbers" is hard when they mostly only do that in class.
I feel that the use of Fathom in this situation would have been a very valuable exercise. It would have been a visual approach to explain a concept that they are having trouble seeing. A way to provide yet another mental anchor for them to recall how it is done.
Maybe it was very demoralizing to discover just how much there is to make up which led to Fathom not being an option. To me even as an outside observer, it a downer to watch some of the classroom interactions and notice the complete lack of commitment to learning. Of special note is the return of two boys who had missed almost a month of school. They appeared to not care at all and weren't working on their homework when given the time. They weren't sitting in any group but seemed to have succeeded in reducing the general level of engagement in the work. She did say however that homework submission rate has gone up to 12-13 out of 23 from 1-2 out of 23.
There is one student who begins to standout for me. He appears to turn in all his homework - doesn't always understand everything or have the right answers but always answers in class. In some ways, he seems to be think out aloud in class and then work out what he needs to get to the answer. In the time allotted for doing homework, he made sure that his table partner was helping him with getting the work done. The table of 4 was to have worked together but in fact only teo of them were working. The girl who was workign with him seems to be better at the actual work but I have a feeling that his motivaiton to plow through all the work was what got her going. I need to watch them more and look for more interactions that tell me something.
Spots that glow:
Today's spots have more to do with my struggle with role and bias rather than with anything that happened in class.
When, Jackie didn't use Fathom to demonstrate the idea of a probability simulation, I was in a dilemma around how much I should influence what happens in this classroom. I wanted to point out the opportunity but didn't. The conflict was a result of my perception of my role in that space. I am struggling trying to reconcile whether I should bring attention to occasions where I believe technology may have been used to good effect. If I do then, I am an actor in the space not just an observer. If I don't then I am depriving the students of a learning opportunity. In the end, is it more important to antiseptically (without contamination) document what happens or intervene and help the learning situation. I don't have the answer that works for me...
