Chapter 3: Stories Categorical Data Tell (Days 11-12)

I'll begin with a description of today, in "A Day in the Life" format. This is for the special day "Back to School Night."

8:00 -- The Advisory class arrives. This class meets on all block days.

There are a dozen seniors enrolled in this class. So far, I haven't been doing much in this class. I'm continuing a second week of Sara Vanderwerf's name tents for this class only. The topic for today is "What are your strengths?" -- another topic I found from Megan Heine's website:

https://peacelovemath.wordpress.com/2018/08/10/first-days-individual-and-group-activities/

Afterwards I have the students load batteries into TI-84 calculators in preparation for the math classes.

Of course, Advisory class will pick up starting next week. That's when the dual enrollment Mass Media course from the community college begins. So far, what I've heard is that the instructors will be in our classrooms teaching this course, but that might change.

9:00 -- The Advisory class leaves for nutrition break.

9:20 -- First period arrives -- due to Back to School Night, odd periods attend Monday, Wednesday, and the minimum day on Friday. This is the first of two general Stats classes.

And this class has returned to having only a single student. A second guy did attend much of last week, but he has since dropped the class. Again, as Sarah Carter once pointed out, seniors often drop math once they realize that they need only three years of math to graduate.

As of now, I have no idea whether a one-student class will be allowed to continue -- nor do I know what will happen if this class is closed and my one guy must switch to fifth period.

11:00 -- First period leaves and third period arrives. This is the Calculus class. There are six students in this class, including one girl who is only a junior.

I've mentioned the Vanderwerf and Carter opening activities repeatedly on this blog. We know that Vanderwerf recommends giving name tents on Day 1 and her 1-100 activity on Day 3. So what exactly does she teach on Day 2? Well, here's the answer:

https://www.saravanderwerf.com/week-1-day-2-top-10-things-not-to-ask-me-about-your-calculator/

So Vanderwerf devotes her entire Day 2 to teaching students about their calculators. I, of course, did nothing of the sort on Day 2 -- especially since Day 2 was my first day. Instead, I did name tents on Day 2 and 1-100 on Day 3.

But today we cover Section 1.4 of the Calculus text, "Graphing Calculators and Computers." And it so makes sense to do Vanderwerf's calculator activity today, as it fits this section. This is why I have the Advisory students load batteries into the TI-84 calculators this morning.

Vanderwerf has a worksheet for this activity, where students locate important TI-84 keys. She begins with locating the ON and OFF (actually "2nd" "ON") keys, then proceeds with the ALPHA key and the sequences that control brightness ("2nd" up and "2nd" down).

Recall that in this class, students may also use the HP Prime Graphing Calculator. I'm still learning more about the HP myself, and using it is still a struggle for me. Originally, I consider having the students fill out the Vanderwerf worksheet for the HP (which has some similarities to TI -- for example, the sequence to turn it off is "SHIFT" "ON" instead of "2nd" "ON").

But there are a lot of examples of equations to graph in Section 1.4, and I really need to start with the main lesson rather than spend the entire block exploring different calculators. And so I only have the students fill out the Vanderwerf worksheet for the TI, but allow them to use HP if they wish.

Two of the students don't use the HP or TI calculators. They've downloaded a grapher onto their phones, but it's Desmos, not HP. Notice that Vanderwerf herself mentions Desmos as an alternative to TI in her Day 2 post.

As it turns out, Desmos avoids some of the trap functions mentioned in today's section. For example, sin 50x might look like a much simpler sine wave on the TI depending on the window, but it oscillates correctly in Desmos. And you have to make an effort to avoid the extraneous line in 1/(x - 1) in TI (such as switching to ZDecimal), but Desmos avoids it completely. (On the other hand, another possible trap function listed in the text, the cube root function, no longer causes problems on any calculator.)

12:50 -- Third period leaves for lunch.

1:25 -- Fifth period arrives. This is the second of two general Stats classes. There are officially four students in this class, but one girl won't attend until next week (for unbloggable reasons).

My goal is to cover six pages of the text on each block day -- today that's pages 18-23. Pages 18 and 19 are the last two pages of Chapter 2, "What Is Data," and there are exercises on that page that I include in the homework.

But there's something I missed when we covered page 14 on Monday. It's a lesson on tips for the TI calculator -- and yes, I had to skip these on Monday because my calculators didn't have batteries.

So you know what that means -- I begin the block with Vanderwerf's TI worksheet again. Unlike in the Calculus class, this time I already did show them the HP on Monday (when we first covered page 14), so I only need to show them TI here.

I also realized that I missed an opportunity when I first taught this on Monday. That day was the birthday of the late Kobe Bryant, a basketball legend here in Southern California. And yesterday was Kobe Bryant Day -- not because it's the day after the star's birthday, but because the date incorporates his two jersey numbers 8 and 24. And I could have tied the annual Kobe celebrations to the calculator lesson, especially considering that the example in the Stats text involves heights of basketball players.

And so I correct it by tying today's TI lesson to the late star (after all it's still Kobe Week). First, the text directs students to replace the item 76 in the data list with the value 78, because the 76" player "grew since last season." But I can tie both these heights to Kobe. First of all, his height, according to his widow Vanessa, was 76 3/4" -- and we don't feel like entering the 3/4", so we type in only 76. But his official height, according to official media guides, was -- you guessed it! -- 78". So replacing 76" with 78" corresponds to replacing Kobe's height according to his wife with his height according to the NBA.

Later on, the text directs students to delete the 78" entry because that player "just quit the team." So instead, I told the students that deleting 78" means that Kobe "is gone, but not forgotten" -- which, once again, is true here in Southern California.

Unfortunately, as I explained in my last post, I can't do a music break today. If I could have performed, I know which Square One TV song I would have played today. First of all, as we begin the first four pages of Chapter 3, "Stories Categorical Data Tell," there are questions on percentages (as the proportions of members of a certain category are often described as percentages).

But I wouldn't have chosen "The Percents Song." Instead, I would have selected "8% of My Love" -- which I've never performed in the classroom before (and still haven't). That's because there are also pie charts in this chapter, and pie charts are featured in the "8%" song. We don't quite make it to pie charts today -- instead, we only cover bar charts. Pie charts will appear in Friday's lesson.

No, I don't want to get into the habit of dwelling on which song I would have played here on the blog, but I will do it when I post "A Day in the Life" (which is all about reflection anyway).

3:05 -- Fifth period leaves, thus ending my teaching day.

Let's get to today's Blaugust topic.

Since today's the 25th, here's the 25th topic from Shelli's old 2019 list:

• What’s the one thing in your school year you’re most looking forward to? A lesson, a unit, a field trip, a school tradition

Well, I don't know whether there will be any field trips this year at my new school, nor do I know much about school traditions. At most high schools, an upcoming tradition might be Homecoming, but our tiny school doesn't even have a football team. Nevertheless, I've heard that a Homecoming might be planned in the upcoming weeks, but I don't know exactly what it will entail yet.

Of course, I know one tradition that my school has like most high schools -- Back to School Night. But I'm not exactly looking forward to Back to School Night, because it's tonight.

So instead, let's continue "A Day in the Life" with Back to School Night.

5:30 -- Back to School Night begins. Even though all students are back in-person, Back to School Night is nevertheless held on Zoom today. All parents begin with a short meeting with the principal.

5:55 -- My first family arrives to my Zoom link. It's the family of my lone first period guy, since parents attend all their students' classes in order.

As expected, not many parents come to Back to School Night -- after all, most high schools never had a big turnout even before the pandemic. The parents involved in the Monday complaint (the one which stopped my music break) definitely attend.

6:45 -- My fifth period presentation ends, and since I don't have a sixth period, this ends my extra long day at school.

Now it's time for reflection. And the strange events of this week reveal what I now consider to be one of my biggest weaknesses -- the need to explain more than I need to.

Once again, I think back to the old charter school -- and there's a ready comparison between science at the old charter school and Ethnostats here at my new school. I told my seventh graders that life science isn't my strength, and so I'd struggle to come up with meaningful science projects. While Ethnostats is still math, it's nonetheless a class I've never even heard of until I started working at this school.

In both cases, my mistakes is to admit in front of students that I wasn't an expert at something. I should never do this -- as far as the students need to know, I'm an expert at whatever I'm teaching.

Ironically, I've replaced my seventh resolution, "We sing to help us learn math," with the quote I mentioned earlier in Blaugust, "If we don't know something, at least we know where to find it." This applies to me, the teacher, as much as the student. I should ask others for help when I struggle with my teaching -- the trick is not to do it in front of the students.

Instead of saying, "I'm waiting for the teachers at the main high school to show me how to teach Ethnostats," I should say something like "I haven't decided when to start the Ethnostats project." The students need to know that I am the expert and ultimate decision maker, not the other teachers.

Likewise, last year during my long-term I regularly referred to the regular teacher, the department chair who taught Math 7, or the lead teacher who taught Math 8. I shouldn't have done this -- instead, I needed to let the students know that I'm in charge. Again, I should have said "I haven't decided yet" if I'm waiting for the advice of the more experienced teachers.

I'm considering no longer waiting for the other teachers to provide me material -- they still have yet to respond to my emails, but then again they're probably busy with their own classes -- and just start the personal Stats notebook that Sarah Carter alluded to in her tweet. But Carter hasn't fully explained how this notebook works -- and now I risk replacing "the math teachers at the main high school" (as the ultimate expert of the classroom") with Sarah Carter. So I'm still giving the impression that someone else is pulling the strings in my class.

That is my immediate goal -- for me to avoid mentioning other teachers in class. Indeed, today when students asked why there is no longer any music break, I simply say "It's because my guitar is no longer in the classroom," rather than someone told me not to play it (regardless of who it is). As far as the students need to know, I, not anyone else, made the decision to end music break.