Group Video Project, Continued (Days 164-165)

Today in Ethnostats, we continue working on the group project. And so now it's time for me to answer the question, should this remain as a video project? Well, today's also the start of the Calculus project, and I've received many ideas from the other Calc teacher at the main high school -- not all of which involve videos. And so I decide that it's easiest just to use the same guidelines with the projects at both classes, and among those guidelines is that the groups should contain two or three members.

My second period Ethnostats class has just four students, so naturally I divide them into two pairs. One pair tells me that they will now do a Powerpoint instead of a video. But the second duo still wants to do a video -- and it appears that they'll ask the first pair to appear in that video as well. I look forward to seeing what both groups produce this week. My fourth period class is larger, and so things are a bit trickier. One guy doesn't want to work in a group at all, while another guy can't start his project because his partner is absent. I hope that she's not out all work, or else that might cause problems for her partner.

As for Calculus, of the six students in that class, one girl already told me that she'll be out all week, while another has seemingly been out all semester. So I divide the other four students into two pairs again, with the caveat that one group may gain an extra member next week. For Calculus, unlike Ethnostats, the project will extend into next week, so there will be time for the absent students to join in. In order to make the points work out, Calculus students will have to submit a plan tomorrow to inform me what their final project will be on -- this is worth 20 points (in lieu of Assignments #61-67). Ethnostats students only have to let me know out loud what their projects will be on -- the last 20 points of homework comprise last week's HW (15 points) and next week's Final Exam Review Study Guides (five points).

Meanwhile, in Trig today we complete Section 4.6 on inverse trig functions. Also, we finish going over the previous HW assignment, so now it's due tomorrow -- also worth 20 points, to keep the points equal.

There's been violence in the news lately -- over the weekend, a white man attacked blacks at a Buffalo supermarket, while right here in Southern California, a Chinese man shot at a Taiwanese church. Both incidents have been classified as hate crimes -- which leads me to wonder, should I discuss these attacks during my Ethnostats class, as they could be considered relevant? So far, I haven't mentioned the shootings, since the focus needs to be on the current projects -- indeed, I'm not standing up and saying much to the class at all. Then again, it's possible that some group might choose hate crimes as its project topic -- or for that matter, cite the violence as part of the Assignment #40 Stats article (which I assigned on Friday, but isn't actually due until tonight).

Today is Elevenday on the Eleven Calendar:

Resolution #11: We follow all protocols for COVID.

Right now, our school -- much like most others around the state and country -- is relaxing the mask and other COVID requirements. But we still fear that COVID cases might currently be on the rise.

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