2009/10/26

Journal Entry #5

I had a doctor’s appointment today and Ms. Ringquist was kind enough to let me in 15 minutes after the start of the class. I had had talked to her a week ago and she was cooperative. And right after I came to the class, I realised that it is one of her general policies – to try accommodating needs of all students. The class was still waiting for one more student who was expected to come later due to extra-curricular commitments (organizing theatre plays). Therefore, the class did not start a new project of the day but work on something else instead. Ms. Ringquist prepared a sheet of “Investigative Task” about backhoes and forklifts. The goal was to brainstorm about a real-life project that should help a heavy equipment manufacturer fixing problems in products already released on the market. Students were supposed to think about what kind of designs were most appropriate, using the appropriate vocabulary (language of the statistical discourse group). I was cooperating with a football player, let´s call him Mišo (his knee is fine by now by the way). He sat alone on the beginning of the class so I joined him. Mišo was participating in the class actively in a confident all the time, sometimes even disturbing with his friend, let´s call him Matúš, and always smiling. Therefore, I do not think that my assumption about the seating order from the previous week was on the place this time.

The second half of the lesson was spent with another of Ms. Ringquist great revision ideas set up to engage students. Students had to collect different coloured cards in this trivial persuade-like game by picking a question (out of three). The idea was to collect a correct answer from each of the six differently coloured pots. There were also general knowledge index cards marked with G (multiple choice questions). Students used a random number generator on a calculator as a dice. And the change of turn occurred when the pot question was answered right, general knowledge question was answered wrong or no coloured/G field was hit. Solutions were provided on a additional sheet of paper so the students could check on their answers. Ms. Ringquist told me that it took her long time to prepare the game and so these last 30 minutes of the “teaching” had actually been used when she was creating the game. And of course that the teacher did not leave the classroom – she kept walking around, checking on students’ progress and clarifying any uncertainties. I did the same thing and observed that students had great amount of fun would not even think one could get in an AP class.