Chapter 11: Observational Studies and Experiments, Continued (Days 91-92)

Today in Ethnostats, we proceed with the next four pages in Chapter 11, continuing with observational studies and experiments. Some topics covered on these pages include control treatments and blinding.

I began the lesson with some more discussion about the McDermott article from last Friday. It appears that many of the students are still confused with the message of this article, so I break it down to them, continuing to discussion traditionalist vs. non-traditional ways of learning.

After the lesson from Chapter 11, I proceed to prepare the students for the upcoming quiz on Friday, because the minimum day schedule still has not been announced. I keep saying that I want to give the Calculus quiz on the Thursday before a minimum day and hence the Ethnostats quiz on a Friday before a minimum day (thus allowing Calc students, and perhaps even Stats students as well, to do quiz corrections on the minimum day itself), but it's difficult when the schedules aren't announced very far in advance. So as of now, it's better to assume that the quizzes will be this week and prepare for them.

In second period, the main lesson ran a little long (despite it being just four pages -- a lot is packed into those four pages). I do tighten the lesson a bit for fourth period. Since many fourth period students don't do the study guides before quizzes, I try a new strategy. I make up a study guide by copying a page of questions from the book, then assign Questions #8-18 from that page. But the students are required to do a certain number of problems (in this case Questions #8-12) before they leave -- I check to see how many problems they've done, and this counts as their Exit Pass.

My goal here is to get the students to work hard on their study guides -- especially the girls in this class (after that debacle where no girl earned higher than a C+ first semester). But I can't say that this is helping any girl at all today -- because every last female student in this class is absent today. This makes me even more hesitant to give a quiz on Friday, as I might be setting up the absent girls for failure.

But it's tough to plan for quizzes when they won't release the minimum day schedule. I'm hoping that maybe a schedule will be released before the Calculus students are scheduled to take a quiz. But I suspect everyone will be distracted with the first week of student COVID testing tomorrow in fifth period -- I suspect the earliest we'll see a schedule is after the testing. Now I don't know what to do about the quizzes.

Ironically, food services mistakenly thought that today was the minimum day, and they fail to show up at our school on time. Lunch is extended by a few minutes, thus delaying sixth period -- when I'm asked to cover a junior English class during my conference period.

Today is Sixday on the Eleven Calendar:

Resolution #6: We follow directions and participate in class.

I definitely enforce this resolution in Ethnostats when I check all the guys' Questions #7-12.

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