Semester 1 Final Exam (Day 84)

Today is the final exam for my fifth period Stats class. There is no school next week, and so I ought to do "A Day in the Life" for the special day "last day before winter break." Moreover, I never did a monthly blog post for December since there was no monthly minimum day. So I could count today's "A Day in the Life" post for both.

But I've decided that I'll do "A Day in the Life" for yesterday rather than today, for several reasons. I'd rather write about my two largest classes third and fourth period, than a day when all I have are a class with four students and then a conference period. Moreover, I face several challenges this week -- and these challenges are more obvious when we look at yesterday's schedule, not today's.

8:00 -- Third period arrives. This is my Calculus class.

And the first person I see in my classroom isn't any of my students. Instead, it's the tech guy -- and he's here because the challenges I face this week involve technology. In fact, there are two separate problems -- first, my Chromebooks are old, and the students have trouble logging into them. The second problem is that the Wi-Fi in my room is very slow, so even after the students log in, they still can't access websites.

These problems have plagued my room this entire month, but their impact had been minimal so far. I gave quizzes to all my classes last week. But the Calculus quiz was done on paper -- recall that I was looking for AP-style questions, and DeltaMath doesn't provide enough of these, so I just modified the quiz I'd seen the other Calculus teacher give at the main high school. And Ethnostats also got a paper quiz -- I didn't make the decision to quiz them until late, so I handed them a short 15-point quiz. Thus only fifth period Stats took an online quiz on Illuminate. Once they had trouble with the computers, I switched it to a paper quiz for them as well. At the time, I thought that it was just a passing problem with Wi-Fi, and that it would be simply working the next day.

Then, of course, this week is finals. I asked the department chair next door, my partner teacher, for help on how to assign the finals. She told me that she's giving her own finals on Illuminate in some of her classes, and so I was hoping to do the same for my students. But when my second period Ethnostats classes tried to take their finals on Wednesday, they were unable to due to the ongoing computer problems. My partner teacher had shown me how to print multiple choice bubbles ("scantrons") for Illuminate tests, and so I was able to print them from my desktop (which was updated and accessed the Internet through the wall) and have my students take the test on the bubbles. But I was forced to admit that I had to call in the tech guy.

So on Thursday, he is in my room. Another Chromebook cart is delivered to my room, and the tech guy is able to update the laptops one by one. As each Calculus student arrives in my room, he hands that student one of the Chromebooks he has worked on. Then he watches as the students log into the computers, and once he sees them successfully do so, he knows that the laptops are fixed.

But that doesn't solve the second problem with the Wi-Fi. And so my students try to access Illuminate, only to have the Internet fail. In the end, I must print out bubble sheets for all of my Calculus students except for one girl who is somehow able to access the Internet. She has her own laptop from home rather than a school-issued Chromebook, and she might be accessing the Internet using a different method than the student Wi-Fi.

All of the students are able to finish the final exam except for one -- a girl who had been absent all of last week and missed the quiz. She feels that she's not ready to take that quiz (much less the final) unless I teach her the lesson she missed. I'd been hoping to help her quietly at her desk while the others are taking the final, but it's difficult when I must spend most of the class checking Chromebooks and printing out tests -- not to mention handle the Part A (the non-calculator section) and Part B (calculator active) sections of the final exam (which I include in order to simulate the AP exam).

10:00 -- Third period leaves for nutrition.

The girl trying to make up her assignments agrees to stay for fourth period. She's normally a teacher aide who doesn't have a final that period, so she's able to stay and make up her work. But unfortunately, I can't stay in the room to help her, because an unexpected meeting is called during nutrition -- not by our principal, but by the superintendent, whose goal is to discuss the future of our school.

Recall that my school is a magnet school -- a troubled magnet school. We only have juniors and seniors because no new students were admitted during the pandemic. And last month, the superintendent announced that it was no longer cost-effective to keep our school open. While no decisions will be made by the board until next month at the earliest, we discussed some possibilities.

First of all, our magnet will be co-located at the flagship high school. Perhaps "co-located" isn't the best word -- it will be more like "integrated," as we will be spread throughout the flagship campus. (This is a bit similar to the magnet that I attended as a young high school student -- it was likewise integrated on the campus of our school.)

Second, we must justify the existence of our magnet by demonstrating that it has at least one program that's unavailable at the flagship high school. In past years, our school had an IB program. Other possibilities include a STEM- or STEAM-focused program. (The magnet I attended allowed students to take seven classes instead of six, and there were more AP classes available.)

One possibility that is raised at the meeting is called "middle college." Under this program, students have the opportunity to work toward an Associate's Degree with a local community college -- if successful, they might even earn their high school diploma and AA degree at the same time. (One student in my Ethnostats class might successfully complete his AA degree soon, and several students are taking a college course during Advisory.)

Some current teachers might be called upon to teach college-level classes. Like all community college instructors, such teachers would be required to have a Master's Degree. Fortunately, I've earned my MA degree in math at UCLA, so I might find myself teaching Multivariable Calculus or something like that.

There will be several meetings next month for us teachers to discuss the future of our school. I'll likely keep you updated here on the blog with any breakthroughs.

10:30 -- The meeting with the superintendent ends. Indeed, snack break is extended by a few minutes in order to accommodate the meeting, and so fourth period is shortened slightly. This is one of my two Ethnostats classes.

Some students ask for a short review before the final. Since the second period Ethnostats final the previous day took under an hour, I figure that I can spare a few minutes to do so, even with the class starting a few minutes late.

When it's time to start the final, I repeat the same pattern from third period -- the tech guy (who's working in my room the entire time) hands each student a Chromebook. I anticipate that some students still won't be able to access the Internet, so I have the four printed copies of the final (from second period the previous day) ready to give any student whose Chromebook fails (and then I go to Illuminate to print them a bubble sheet as well). My hope is that no more than four of the 13 students in the class need to use them, the other nine being able to complete the final online. (I was going to Xerox some more copies of the final after having seen the computers fail in third period -- except I can't due to the superintendent's meeting.) At first, I seem to be lucky -- only four students are unable to reach Illuminate, and the other nine seem to be working on the online test.

But then a fifth student has trouble with the test. Apparently, the guy is able to reach Illuminate and start the test, but his Internet stops working before he can finish it. And he's very upset that he's essentially forced to take the final a second time. He remains angry with me and gives me the silent treatment the entire period -- in fact, when I give him my usual holiday gift of a pencil and candy, he rejects the pencil and gives the candy to the girl sitting next to him.

At this point, I print out bubble sheets for all of the remaining students. I tell them that they should mark their answers on the sheet even if their Internet seems to be working, so that what happened to the upset guy won't happen to them as well.

While all of this is going on, the girl from Calculus takes her make-up quiz. She begins the final exam during this period. The Wi-Fi isn't working for her either, so she takes the test on a bubble sheet.

And the tech guy starts working on the router in the classroom, which is likely the source of all the problems I'm having with the Wi-Fi.

12:20 -- Fourth period leaves.

The Calculus girl continues to work on the final. I try to avoid helping her during the test, but she points out that I was supposed to give her the make-up lesson before the test (when I was interrupted by the computer problems and superintendent meeting), and so I do give her a few pointers throughout.

1:30 -- She finishes her final around this time. I have a quick Zoom call with a lady from the district who's in charge of helping out new teachers like me (and BTSA, which I don't need).

And so that concludes my Thursday. Fortunately, the tech guy's work is completed in time for today's fifth period final. The students are able to complete the final without a hitch. (That's why I focus more on yesterday's events than today's in this post.)

As I reflect on this day, I ask myself, is there anything I could have done better? We know that one guy from fourth period is upset with me over the computer problems during the final. Is there anything I could have done to prevent this?

Well, I could have simply made it a paper test from the very start in fourth period, after the computer problems happen during the Period 2-3 finals. But the tech guy wants to see the students work on the Chromebooks after he fixes them. I must tread a fine line between what the tech guy prefers (the students testing the Chromebooks to see whether they are working) with what the students prefer (the peace of mind of taking the final without worrying that the computers will break down during the test -- even if it means that the test must be done on paper).

It's also possible that I could have called the tech guy earlier in the week. Indeed, if I'd simply given a computer quiz last week to every class, say on Thursday/Friday, and saw that in period after period the Wi-Fi wasn't working, then I could have called the tech guy on Monday/Tuesday. The students could have tested the Chromebooks on a day without a final exam -- and hopefully, by the start of finals on Wednesday, everything would be working in time for the test.

But there's one thing I might have done that could have prevented this entire mess -- write the final exam questions during Thanksgiving break. You see, I was struggling to decide what to include on the exams in all classes (in particular, whether to start Chapter 4 or give additional work in Chapter 3 before the Calculus final, and how to distinguish between general Stats and Ethnostats for the finals in those classes). So I wasn't completely sure what questions to include on the final until this week. I found myself writing questions on the night before each final (that is, Ethnostats on Tuesday night before the Wednesday second period final, Calculus on Wednesday night, and general Stats last night).

I finished the Calculus final just before bed on Wednesday -- at least I thought I did. I woke up yesterday morning only to see that one of my questions was missing answer choices.

Of course, you might point out that unlike Calculus my Ethnostats final was obviously done before Thursday morning (since I gave it to my second period Ethnostats on Wednesday), so I could have easily made the extra copies of the test I needed that morning. But I didn't -- I was running late, because I stopped at Target to buy the candy that I would pass out that day. (This week I'd been driving to multiple stores trying to find a bag of individual Skittles packets that I'd passed out on Halloween, but every store was out of them. With the recent supply chain problems, I wouldn't be surprised if no store has had them since November 1st.)

So instead I settled for Starburst on Thursday morning. (Again, I lean toward allergy-friendly candy rather than chocolate with nuts.) Of course, the guy who complained would much rather that I'd brought no candy and a well-prepared exam than candy and an ill-prepared exam (and he made that clear when he gave the Starburst away to the other girl).

And of course, I couldn't make the copies during snack break because of the superintendent. So I entered fourth period just hoping that I wouldn't need the extra copies -- but of course I did.

So how would having written the finals during Thanksgiving had helped? If I'd already written the finals, I could have spent Wednesday night printing test copies (and even Illuminate bubble sheets) from home rather than doing so on Thursday during the test. Of course, there's no guarantee I would have passed them out if I'd thought the Internet was working (and I did, at least for the guy who ended up complaining).  I also could have avoided other problems I had with the tests. (In Calculus, I had trouble uploading Parts A and B of the exam, and I got the two Stats tests mixed up, which led to students getting questions marked wrong in both classes.) And because of this, I plan on writing my second semester finals during spring break.

Of course, it's not spring break now, but winter break. My district isn't LAUSD, but like LAUSD, we also get three weeks off for the holidays. I'll be making several posts during the long break, as usual, to discuss various topics, including second semester plans for all of my classes.

By the way, today's Google Doodle celebrates French mathematician Emilie du Chatelet.