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(insert dream sequence here)
[on the board]
Objective: We will learn how to bake a cake.
Do Now: What is a cake? Describe 3 characteristics of a good cake.Lesson:
Mr. V: “OK, class, let’s look at the Do Now. A lot of you put down characteristics about what a cake should look like, and that’s great. Now, let’s look at this cake.”
[puts up cake]
“What do you notice?”
Student1: “It has pink frosting on it.”
Mr. V: “Yes, what else?”
Student2: “It looks good.”
Mr. V: “OK, you’re getting there. Anything else?”
Student3: “It’s cylindrical about a y-axis.”
Mr. V: “Hmm, OK. I’m glad you’re thinking about it. Now, I need a volunteer.”
I would say read the whole thing, but that would be wrong.
Nevertheless, you must.
Read at least down to the part where one kid manages to bake a workshop cake.
28 comments:
Thank you for the link. It's funny what happens to the mind after only 2.5 years of teaching and some good cookies ...
and by thank you, i mean, thank you for linking my site.
I agree with Catherine--this is a must read.
“It’s cylindrical about a y-axis.”
Haha!
I wonder how Socrates taught without all the gadgets we have.
I wonder how it is that so many proponents of the Socratic method are able to supposedly use this method without ever having read Plato.
Socrates didn't teach science, history, or shop.
2.5 years of teaching???
oh gosh
I will say it again: I don't know how teachers do it.
Brilliant satire, Jose (if you're still here).
Everyone here has been complaining about workshop models and student-knowledge-construction, and the incredible unfairness of this approach for about 3 years now....when I got to the kid who could bake the perfect cake and the other kids said, "No fair, his dad's a baker..."
That will be a moment to treasure for years to come.
I'll get a link put up to your site SOMETIME TODAY WHEN I'M TAKING A BREAK FROM WRITING 10 PAGES ON DOGS
"Am I crazy for having an internal monologue in a public blog?”
It's crazy to think that none of this thinking came up before entering the classroom ... like in ed school.
How about prerequisites? Do the kids even know how to properly measure with a teaspoon?
"Mr. V: 'What did you guys come up with?'
Student2: 'Our cake is really sweet, and it came out too clumpy.'"
Where's Alton Brown when you need him. A little chemistry would go a long way.
Happy thinking is blossoming at all levels. They apply top-down analysis, but can't seem to get far enough down to examine the details.
I wrote a long letter to the Dean of Engineering at the University of Michigan when I received their latest semi-annual magazine. This issue was on education and the dean used the term "sage on the stage" in a pejorative fashion. He then went on to talk about all of the special design competitions that are now popular: Formula SAE MRacing, Concrete Canoes, Human-Powered Submarines, Solar Cars, Mini-Baja Racers, and so forth. By the way, I write software that's used by some of these teams.
All of these are worthwhile projects that can be used to synthesize previous technical and theoretical classes. I had a senior design group project that did the same thing and had to be presented and defended in front of students, professors, and guests from industry. This is nothing new.
The dean crossed the line, however, when he assumed that this provides a model for all levels of learning. He talked about how they were reviewing methods for making classes more hands-on. He seems to forget that much of engineering is theoretical research and mathematics.
He said that: "While our faculty members still have an important role in sharing their knowledge through traditional lectures, today's students need - and expect - much more."
Students know more than the faculty about what they need?
As I always say: What, exactly, is the problem you are trying to solve? Is there a problem? If you can't state the problem in one clear, precise sentence, then you can't solve the problem. It seems that the proliferation of engineering synthesis projects and competitions are already filling a need at engineering colleges. It's not clear what problem the dean is now trying to solve.
My old advisor at Michigan has been talking for years about lowered core math requirements. Will colleges, just like high schools, lower core requirements further and offer many more hands-on (fluff) electives? In high school, at least, students have to worry about the SAT and AP classes to get into a good college. But for college, it would be way too easy for kids to slide through hiding away in the workshop model.
My old advisor at Michigan has been talking for years about lowered core math requirements.
I take it he's been concerned about this?
What does he say?
Also, do you want to post your letter here - or parts of it?
I DON'T SEEM TO BE WRITING 10 PAGES, DO I?
IT IS 9:23 AM
I NEED....AT LEAST ONE PAGE BY 10
OR POSSIBLY MORE
why don't I go do that?
why did I become a writer?
Thanks, Jose!
It's good to be reminded that teachers are just as worried about the relevance of the workshop model as the parents are.
Sometimes we assume that teachers like these kinds of projects as the prep on the teacher's part seems pretty easy. Rather than build a coherent lesson plan with an end goal in mind, teachers can just toss out a half-baked idea and watch where it goes.
It's good to know the teachers know it is all crap as well. But then why does it persist?
10:15 am
279 words, plus one distress call from school; Jimmy screaming, can't calm him down, gave him 3 Tylenol, what to do, etc.
answer: take him to nurse's office, have him lie down, call me back
upshot: Jimmy now fine, playing in water in bathroom (not supposed to do this), laughing
toss out a half-baked idea and watch where it goes
literally in this case!
in NYC, constructivism was mandated from on high
they were sending inspectors around to teacher's classrooms to make sure the kids were sitting on the floor instead of chairs
you'd think the irony of a white elite mandating that predominantly black and Hispanic children spent X-amount of time sitting on floors would hit somebody besides the millions of us who are powerless to do anything about this, but no
"As I always say: What, exactly, is the problem you are trying to solve? Is there a problem? If you can't state the problem in one clear, precise sentence, then you can't solve the problem. It seems that the proliferation of engineering synthesis projects and competitions are already filling a need at engineering colleges. It's not clear what problem the dean is now trying to solve."
Could it be that the problem is students coming in to college after 13 years of just this sort of education? Could it be that they are losing students who have never been really challenged in earlier grades and are used to doing these group discovery projects. Could this be an attempt to keep students in the program? I don't know it would be interesting to find out.
I am with SteveH on this, I think the competitions are great. I got my high school physics and engineering students in all I could find, but they were outside of school.
I did not rely on project based learning I made sure the students were well grounded in physics and engineering first. Yes I did labs and demos but only after the students knew the material. I did have one quarter long project in the 3rd quarter where the students had to use a lot of what they learned in the first semester to do the project but again they had already studied the material.
I did not rely on project based learning I made sure the students were well grounded in physics and engineering first. Yes I did labs and demos but only after the students knew the material. I did have one quarter long project in the 3rd quarter where the students had to use a lot of what they learned in the first semester to do the project but again they had already studied the material.
!!!!!!!
Why isn't this obviously the way to proceed?
You can only do projects after you've gained an immense amount of knowledge about the field you're doing a project in -- or, in this case, after you've had an excellent h.s. course in the subject area and you have a good teacher overseeing the project.
My 6th grader has been assigned a project in which she is required to construct a model of the Nile River.
The project fulfills all the school's constructivist pedagogy -- it is interdisciplinary and promotes discovery learning. This project requires her to combine science, history, and reading and writing. Of course, she is not required to learn anything about these subjects ahead of time. Actually knowledge of the Nile River is not necessary.
She has to put sandy soil on one side of her river, dirt on the other, flood the river every day and see which side of the river the grass grows on.
I don't really know where to begin with this one. I think the only reason the kids are to do this is because it is interdisciplinary.
Otherwise, there is nothing redeeming about it.
Interdisciplinary is the holiest of the holy.
Everyone teaches everything.
I'd always read that interdisciplinary approaches end up teaching only a superficial concept of a field, but now I'm starting to see how that works in practice.
When every teacher is teaching outside his field, they have to go on what little they know about other teacher's fields.
That isn't a criticism of teachers not having huge amounts of domain knowledge in other fields -- nobody can have huge amounts of domain knowledge in every subject taught at school.
It is a criticism of adding all the other disciplines to each class, or expecting teachers to do so.
123:11 pm
two pages written, phone conversation with Temple re: Mech research on wolf "packs" (wolf packs don't exist), phone conversation with Ed re: Jimmy, crying, headaches, med change
got to pick up the pace.
There may not be a problem (with a major change in approach to teaching) at UofM. I can't tell and I told the dean that the devil is in the details. There were no details. I did emphasize my position on bottom-up versus top-down curricula, and I'll let you know if I get any response.
I guess the problem is that I am hearing the same sorts of ed school words we talk about here coming from the university. I wonder what the issue is exactly. We had to do "real" projects when I was there 30 years ago. I remember in the Operating Systems course, teams had to write a full multi-tasking, time-sliced operating system for a Data General SuperNova minicomputer. Our OS was timed on how fast it could concurrently run a mix of I/O and CPU-intensive jobs.
If what they want to do is to formalize (I'm not sure what this means) the integration of these special projects with the curriculum, then I still have questions. Engineering students typically don't have a lot of free time. If it isn't optional, then what is being given up to make time for these projects? I see them more as a senior or graduate student issue. Below the senior level, students don't have enough skills to tackle these projects.
My old advisor has complained about the reduced math requirements, but it's hard for me to know how bad it's gotten. You do get lots of math in regular engineering classes. I learned about fourier transforms in an engineering class, so it's not realistic to just count math classes.
Generalities always sound good. Details don't.
Wow, lots of great responses. Thanks a mil. I'll say this much; it's not so much that we haven't wanted to say something because we have and then some, but it's because the higher-ups have been messing with us. it's to the point where some of my colleagues'll say "if they want the horse tied to the pole, even if it's raining outside, even if it's going to die of pneumonia and it's taken to the glue factory, then that's what i'm going to do, because then it's not my responsibility." the bitter side of me wants to say that that's what we should do, but no. these are our KIDS! :: sigh::
I'll be writing about this today ...
I've passed many a pleasant hour being scandalized by the situation in NYC.
I guess the problem is that I am hearing the same sorts of ed school words we talk about here coming from the university.
Ed is coming to think this is a big problem.
University professors are using ed-speak language, without knowing what it means to K-12.
Generalities always sound good.
I now find all use of generalities in education aversive.
Catherine,
This was the project. It was for my Honors Physics class which had Juniors and Seniors in it.
The students would get into groups of 3 to 4 and would be given a launch tube angled at 45 degrees. I would make these in my workshop over the Christmas break so they would be ready for the start of the 3rd quarter. I set it at 45 degrees to take one variable out of the mix, plus I did not want to go to the trouble of making the launcher with a variable angle. They were also given two white 35 mm film containers.
Their job was to hit a target.
Using one Alka Seltzer and water they had to determine how far the canister would fly and hit the target. The target was a hula-hoop so they had some lee-way.
They were to test within a range of 5 ml to 15 ml of water. They had to gather the data and correlate it. They were allowed to modify the launcher and/or the cantainer but the container had to fly a minimum of 2 meters. This kept them from weighing idown so that it just come out and fall to the ground and hit the target.
They were required to have a one page written progress report to me each week and had to give a 5 minute presentation to the entire class of where they were every two weeks. In the end they had to come up with an Excel spreadsheet program based on theory and data collected that would tell them how far it would fly given an amount of water between 5 and 15 ml.
They were also required to present their results at a "symposium." The symposium consisted of friends of mine I had worked with as an aerospace engineer. They had 20 minutes to present with an additional 5 minutes for questions from the engineers. They also had a final engineering report they handed in. I told the engineers to ask the hard questions because the students were to understand exaclty what they did and should be able to answer questions.
After the morning presentations and lunch we would go to the gym and have a fly off. Each group got 3 tries to hit the target. I would announce the amount of water to be used, they would plug it in their Excel program and determine how far their projectile would fly. The hula-hoop would then be placed out that far and they would give it a try.
They had an entire quarter to work on this. They had to do a lot of work outside class. You would walk down the halls and see students in any free corner they could find launching of canisters and taking data.
In the end it worked real well. Most of the groups did a good job. Some of the groups really did a great job, they videotaped launches, slowed the tape down trying to determine launch velocity out of the tube. All the groups got some very good reviews from the engineers. I did that project for about 5 years.
wow, thanks!
I'll get this up front.
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