Chapter 12: Using Randomness, Continued (Day 98)

Today in Ethnostats, I link to an article. Today I choose "Transforming Deficit Myths about Learning, Language, and Culture," by Barbara Flores and others. Once again, I'm able to find the article on my Google Drive (placed there by a predecessor), so the students don't need to use JSTOR today.

Just like the previous article and the Freire book, the focus is on finding different ways to teach and assess different cultures of students. This time, the authors argue about language, and how students who lack standard English skills (including native Spanish speakers as well as African-Americans who speak a dialect) can still demonstrate success in school.

In second period, one guy points out a flaw in the way I introduce this to the students -- the students are to learn about non-traditional teaching methods, but the method by which I do so (that is, by having the students read and answer question) is still by direct instruction. Indeed, many traditionalists mention this as well (especially in regards to teacher credential programs). Of course, I want to do projects with these classes as well, but I haven't quite got there yet (nor have I been provided with many projects to do).

Meanwhile, a monthly minimum day has finally been announced, for February 7th. So now I can set up my assessment schedule for all my classes For starters, neither class is taking a quiz this week, but Calculus (respectively Trig) will take a Chapter 4 (respectively Chapter 1) test next week, on Thursday (respectively Friday). Test corrections at least for Calculus can take place on the minimum day, the 7th, as originally planned.

Since the 7th is the monthly minimum day, the first quiz will take place just before Presidents' Day, and it will not have any corrections available. This will be labeled as Quiz #5, and in Calculus it will cover part of Chapter 5, so the quiz numbers and chapter numbers finally line up again.

A minimum day has also been announced for March -- but unfortunately, it's on the 14th, Pi Day. Thus, assuming that this date doesn't change between then and now, school will be out well before 1:59 -- and it will be difficult to buy pizza for anyone since I'll see all classes before lunchtime. Fifth period Trig will start just before 11:00. I still want to finish Chapter 2 before Pi Day and start Chapter 3 (including Section 3.2 on radian measure) by then.

Today is Fourday on the Eleven Calendar:

Resolution #4: We know how to use a calculator like riding a bike.

We used the TI-84 in both Calculus yesterday and Ethnostats today. The Stats students used randInt to generate random numbers. In Calculus, we continue Section 4.4 on graphing -- since there was no quiz, I could use what would have been quiz time to play the Starbird video on optimization and then go over more graphing problems. These students definitely need help with the TI-84 -- I hope they'll figure it out so they can use their graphing calculators on the AP exam.

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