Calculus Day 1

Last year in calculus on day one, my students explored local linearity on the calculator. The NEW fancy schmancy TI-nspire calculators that THAT class had experience with. This year's group is used to TI-84's, so they need some prep work. But since I wanted to start with Calculus and not Calculator-us, I'm switching what we're doing:

As I'm taking care of administrative things, they will be working on this. They know nothing about derivatives and integrals and calculus. I will not help them.

I want them to see the difference in difficulty from the left pictures and the right ones. I want them to see the possibilities that exist. I want them to struggle with strategies. I want them to remember some geometry. I want them to think about reading graphs. I want them to be intrigued.

Afterward, we will discuss the "words" that define calculus: a study of rates of change, instantaneous values, ...

And the Award Goes to.....

ME - for "Continual False Expectations in the Face of Reality"!

Thank you everyone who made this possible. I couldn't have continued my fantasy of thinking I'd be TOTALLY Friday-ready for the Monday-arriving students if you hadn't smiled and nodded and pretended right along with my dream world. There should be doctoral research on that part of my brain that flies against the force of 16 years of contradictory evidence, that THIS year, REALLY, I'll totally get everything done by Friday. Yes. Yes I will. Copies would be made. Details would be hammered out. Room would be Fun! Kicky! Inviting! All. By. Friday.

In other news: I'll be spending the weekend at school actually finishing these things.

Arts and Crafts

I made my new planner for the year. I found various funny and inspiring images on the computer and cut and paste and printed. Then I put them on the front and back and inside covers, and I mapped out the calendar. I also covered it with packing tape.

Do you see that in February? What's that, you say? Why yes, I did register for my first marathon, thank you for asking! I plan on being very obnoxious and mentioning it often. I figure if I'm enough of a jerk about it and talk about it ad infinitum (ooh, $10 words!), then I will be forced to follow through.

I was inspired by a student who ran the marathon last year, AND by this blog entry from The Blog of Impossible Things. I keep running across the word "epic" lately, so I'm taking that as a sign to try and have an EPIC year.

Wrapping It Up

Just back from a last-minute trip to DC and Canada. Didn't know if I was going to go this year because of jury duty, but I risked it (the probability was low due to being called in in late July) .... see! Math in action!

I had fun touring DC while my husband did work stuff. I saw my oldest friend - funny story: I've known her one year longer than I've known my husband. In fact, I was with my friend when my "future husband" walked up to us at a "welcome back grad students" shindig and tipsily started chatting us up. In fact, come to find out YEARS later in a "how did you two meet" conversation, my husband mentions that, "yeah, you were both okay, I would have dated either one of you." Hmmmmm. Anyway. Saw my oldest friend and went to the Newseum. Awesome. It costs $$, but it was still fascinating. Here is the 9/11 section with random people caught in the shot.

I also finished the 3 dolls I made for little kidlets (niece and niece-in-laws????). I thought I would do a montage of the dolls along the trip, but they were so wobbly, that it ended up looking like they were drunk the whole time. I like it. There is a margarita picture for good measure.

Whoa! What a night! Let's revive with some java!

And what do we have here? Let the games begin!

Who ARE those crazy girls? I'm just here to look cute and innocent.

Clothes? What is this archaic nonsense?!

Relaxing location of the in-laws cottage.

Their leaves are already starting to turn! It was a high of high 60's the whole time we were there. WAY different than Central Texas.

School starts with PD this coming Monday. I was SO going to go in early and unpack and get settled. But then the crabby, perimenopausal me said, "No!". The cranky me said, "Go out and enjoy the rest of the summer with a bang!". So, that's what I am going to do for the next few days. I wonder who's going to pay for it next week. Any guesses?

First Day Homework

For the past 5,000 years I've been using the same Math Autobiography as the first day homework assignment. Though I've enjoyed it, I've A.D.D.-ed out of it and decided to mix it up. This is my first draft of what I'll be expecting of my students this year in math: (the worksheet). I'm curious to see what they come up with. I think I'll tell them (and follow through) that I'm doing the assignment also. Really not a sports person at all, so that's going to be a stretch for me.

First Day Precalculus

Who stole summer? Why do I keep getting sucked into the vortex of puzzles and naps and such? I want answers!

I mulled around some things, and came up with my preliminary First Day Activity for Precalculus. I could still change things, and I don't know the timing of it, so maybe I'll add more "mathy" things just in case the kids end up having a vast amount of time at the end. I'm excited about it because I'm nosy and curious and want to see how they answer the various quesitons.

Here it is:

Summer Musings...

We got our AP results back, and WOOT! for AP Calculus AB and APCS. I had a higher percentage of students pass the APCalc test than before. I'm chalking it up to a combination of the flipped lessons, and the daily quizzes on basic facts, and the fact that our school culture is that MOST of the students buy into doing their homework and taking care of business. There were STILL a handful of seniors that I know would have totally passed if they had put in the effort during the year. These were the flaky attenders of class, the flaky homework doers, the "oh, I didn't watch the video" kids, the starers off into spacers. There were about 6 of them. I want to reflect on ways of getting THESE types of kids to learn and retain in spite of themselves. Somehow I think writing and reflecting on their parts (of what they're learning) has to be part of the solution. If they can verbalize or think through concepts, that has to go far in their retention. Right? I don't know, this will be my goal for next year. Ooh! maybe I won't check their notes for if they watched the video and took notes, but periodically I can check their notebooks on reflections, and make that some BIG grade, with some specific guidelines on what they write. Need to think about this.

APCS? I actually didn't think I'd get ANY of my students to pass. It was my first year teaching. It was their first programming class ever. BUT. There were students that passed, AND some 5's and 4's. Exciting. Miracle of miracles. I am not teaching the AP course next year, and I have mixed feelings. I think it's a good thing because now I can focus on a variety of other things that I didn't feel I had time for in the AP curriculum. But there also seems to be something cool about my girl students being able to say that they took / are taking APCS. It's unexpected.

Racism / Institutionalized Racism / Zimmerman / Communication .... I'm trying to wrap my head around what and why and how to help fix .... here are scattered thoughts:

Each side of the various arguments thinks they are right and justified and I don't know that people actually LISTEN to other points of view effectively. It's a charged conversation, and it's uncomfortable, and it's not something you can bring up in casual social interactions, and it's emotional and people feel misunderstood, and people think, "well I'M not racist, so don't pick on me", and others think, "well, I had *this* experience with *this* race, and so that must mean that EVERYONE of *that* race is "that" way.

Also, people are inundated with all sorts of problems in the world and all sorts of information, and it's basically overload, and things don't DIRECTLY affect them and their lifestyle, so it's easy to be incensed in the short run and then just as easy to forget about the problem later on and so nothing changes.

People need to separate behaviors and problems due to poverty vs perceptions of various people of various races.

I have strong beliefs on say, abortion or education, so I don't know how willing I'd be to listen to and think about other sides of the topic. Maybe that's the same way with people who hold racist beliefs. I think this also comes back to effective communication.

One of the topics that came up in all this current hoopla was something to the effect of, "well, _____ race commits most of the crimes, so it's not really racial profiling, it's just the way it is." So I tried to use various search words/phrases to see if the statistics backed this up. Not a fruitful search. Maybe I used the wrong words? Then I'm thinking, where did THOSE people get their information? I'm guessing that some commentator just made that statement, and these people trust THAT news outlet (whatever it is), and then take the words as fact without thinking about it or studying it. ... I know I'm guilty of that for other things. I guess this comes down to critical thinking and forming of your own opinions. That takes too much work in our current information-overload life, and it's way easier to passively internalize what someone else says if it fits with your world view.

Okay, I have not solved the world problems just yet ..... and this is too deep and troubling and requires more pondering. But I want to leave you with something funny.

There was a topic on reddit.com about "what fake names do you give at Starbucks for your order" and it evolved to names you give when you go out to dinner. Someone had the funny idea of, "Donner". So then the waitress would call, "Donner, Party of 5" ...... then I thought a funnier ending would be that when the family goes up, they can say, "oh, it's a party of 4 now".

Federal Jury Duty

I got called last fall to jury duty and grumbled internally and externally about having to miss school and make up sub plans and stuff for the 2 months required to serve. On the off chance it would work, I put in a request for a deferral for the summer. Magically, I got the deferment, and now from July 1st - August 23rd I'm required to call in every week to see if I will serve.

The first 2 weeks this summer I again got a pass, and then I found out I'd be serving this week for a potential 3 week trial. Being nosy, I went online to see what cases were pending in our district, since I wanted to be prepared if it was some gory murder trial, and I'd have to be subjected to graphic pictures. Nope. The only potential case was a civil one. Still grumbled, like probably most people who are called.

I got there this morning, and it was very interesting. First of all, they show you a video featuring Sandra Day O'Connor and John Roberts. They made 2 good points that I hadn't thought about in all my grumbling. First was that they wanted a representative sample of the population (hello Statistics!), so that's why they didn't just call retired people or housewives. Second, they mentioned that if the potential juror was ever in a court case, they would most likely want a fair trial and a jury of their peers, not just a select segment of the population. I was convinced.

It was a fascinating morning. We were numbered, and I was in the 3rd wave of people that would be questioned to serve, and they eventually picked the 7 people from the 1st wave, so I was never questioned, and I was excused. The judge was funny and Texas-y and the questions were interesting. It was also fascinating to hear the background of the 16 people that were in the 1st wave. They DID come from all parts of society. One woman immediately was excused since she owned stock in one of the companies in the case. There was a manual laborer, a PhD, some tech-y people, housewives, retired people, educators, business people. There were White, Hispanic, Black, Asian people. There were old/young, women/men. They mentioned that they put the names into a "bingo lottery" type machine to see who was in what wave. I'm wondering if it was totally random or if there were some parameters to decided what batches to choose when.

Anyway, ironically, now I'm hoping I get called again this summer ... nothing bloody, though!

Seven Stages of Groupwork

I'm at a great CS teachers workshop for the next few days, and there are a ton of generously given ideas and resources bandied about.

But then the ax came down with the statement, "We have put you all in groups of four, and you will be completing various tasks with your group the next few days." Then I think I went through something like the 7 stages of grief with my mixed emotions.

Stage 1: Shock & Denial ... What? They cannot be serious! I am just here to quietly absorb information!  I can't be expected to perform. I don't know what I'm doing!

Stage 2: Pain & Guilt ... I hate group work. I will be the loser in the group. Everyone will shun me and expose me for the know nothing that I am. There will be pushy people in the group.

Stage 3: Anger & Bargaining ... $&?&:@/(&(/@(&?!, Okay, if I can just get through this, then I can treat myself to chocolate, or wine OR BOTH!

Stage 4: Depression & Loneliness ... Sigh there's always Group work. This is payback for when I make the kids do group work. I'm just going to go in this corner by myself and eat worms.

Stage 5: The Upward Turn ... Hey! My group mates aren't so bad! Hey! I actually contributed something! Hey, and I even learned something, and it wasn't so bad!

Stage 6: Working Through ... This is valuable! Everyone should do group work! Three cheers for group work!

Stage 7: Acceptance and Hope ... Whew! It's over! I accept that I made it through and am now banishing the experience from my memory bank!

College Student Jobs

Our school just had our first graduating class, and now we're sending off our little kidlets into college. Many of the kids are the first in their families to go to college, and many are not made of money (sass, they're made of sass, though, I wonder if that pays well). So that got me to thinking that there must be many jobs college students can do that are not well known but that pay better than the minimum wage jobs they could find at a fast food place.

I'd love to start a list of lesser-known, well-paying jobs and then have some links for resources. I'm wondering if y'all have any ideas about such secret jobs. I did see some sites with some ideas, like here, for example, but I'm thinking of the ones that pay better than you'd expect and that need maybe a little extra pre-training (something they could get either their senior year of HS or during the summer before college).

My examples so far:

1. Bartending. You don't have to be 21 apparently, and you could work weddings or hotels or such.
2. Yoga Instructor. A neighbor just mentioned that her friend's HS senior now teaches yoga at business sites.
3. Soldering. Okay, I don't know the official title, but when I went to a local community college, they mentioned that their current engineering students had offers of flexible 20hrs/week jobs doing tasks such as this.
4. Tutoring neighborhood HS kids


I know there have to be more out there.

Summer: Forty Percent Over

Yeesh! What lazy teacher is napping the summer away? To be fair, I am doing some CS things and house chores and friend visiting, but mostly I'm doing puzzles. I have a book of these, and these, and an app of these, and ... I'd better stop, though there are more. I'm not what I consider a "gamer" whatever that is, but I can see how someone could get chair sores from stagnant sitting all day and .... whoops! It's 4:30pm time for a drink and a think about dinner and nothing has gotten done about curriculum planning or anything tangible other than I had fun doing puzzles.

There are some positive things I've done. I switched over to bloglovin.com from my Google Reader. I'd tried others and browsed yet some others, but I'm liking this one. It's like a nice streaming roll of the current posts of each blog, and once you click on an entry, a new window pops up. There are also suggestions of other blogs you may like (sheesh, how many style blogs ARE there?), and it's easy to add and delete blogs.

I've also started my annual summer crocheting fest of toys/dolls for 2 little kids I see once a year. I got the idea from here. I adjusted some things, and am eager to get the clothes made and the 2nd doll made, but here's what I have so far:

I think she's super cute.

Also, I'm having fun looking into teaching a unit on "ethical hacking". Has anyone done such a thing? I have qualms, but I'll put safeguards in place. I've found some websites that seem to have labs the kids can do. I'm also thinking of doing the unit as a "college type" course where they sort of make up the curriculum and resources as they go with some guidance on topics from me. I don't know how that would be structured yet, but there are a ton of YouTube videos and sites and resources. We'll see.

I'm also taking an online course to learn about AppInventor from MIT. That's going to be another unit in the CS3 class.

I also want to work through the Objects First with Java (BlueJ) to see if that is a viable way to teach my CS1 class this year.

Hmmmmm, no math PD over the summer. I guess that's natural since my CS classes will be my new preps.

Okay, the nap and the puzzles are calling ... or I may be thirsty, if you know what I mean.

How Do You Not Know That?

A few things have made me think of the following this past week - the fact that students leave their 13 years of public schooling and don't know things people (some? most?) think should be basic. Then the people are shocked or upset or start thinking "the education system is broken!" "teachers are bad!" "what are they thinking!" "in my day, we learned these things!".

Some examples that I came across:
* Many teens can't read an analog clock.
* There are teens that still don't know their multiplication tables easily.
* There are teens/people that can't distinguish between (pick your favorite): your/you're, there/their/they're, lose/loose, its/it's, etc.
* Teens can't read or write cursive.
* Teens can't easily manipulate fractions.

I see these things in my students. I teach students in high school. I feel like I'm rushed to cover particular curriculum that is relevant to the course. I am guilty of shaking my head at their non-knowledge, but then not doing anything consistently to remedy the fact.

I can totally see how all this could come about. Let's take fractions, for example, but you could replace "fractions" with any of the other basic skills. These are taught in middle school (elementary?). It is very believable, from a teacher's perspective of knowing how things go, that, OH! It's time for the fractions unit. Let's spend our designated amount of time on fractions. Some students get it, and some don't. Oh no, we have to move on to our next topic for a variety of reasons. Too bad so sad that some students never mastered the fractions. Maybe we can practice them piecemeal within the next concepts. May or may not be enough. Flash forward all the remaining years of schooling. Fractions are either assumed to be mastered, or slightly reviewed, and maybe or maybe not mastered by the unknowing. Graduation day. There are students that don't know their fractions.

Then there are people that think, "oh, just use your calculator", or "no one ever REALLY needs to know that", or "I don't get it either! High five!".  Or, people don't say anything, but think less of them. But that just adds to the problem.

I don't know a fix. I guess if it was easy, it would be solved by now. I know I try to address fractions in ALL my classes, but I don't know if I give it enough justice to get EVERYONE 100% proficient. There always seems to be a laundry list of other things to teach.

It would be nice if there were passive ways of fixing this problem once it comes down the pipeline. For example, posters on the wall that you really don't refer to, but they're there for their perusal (see what I did there :) ). Maybe, just maybe the posters are engaging enough, like eye candy, that the students look at them periodically, and then absorb the knowledge eventually. I know you can't do this for everything, but maybe there are other such things to help.

Inventing. Innovation. Inspiration.

We just got back from our MIT field trip, and I'm still head shaking about how inspiring it is to hear talks from people that are so passionate about their work and about their world-changing ideas.

Here is a link to 2 Rice professors that have an engineering class that focuses on inventions to help people around the world. I still tear up when I watch it. My impression is that it is the students that think up the inventions. These professors will donate their winnings to establishing a new hospital in the African region they work with.

Here is a link to an MIT professor that uses the knowledge that organisms have to create digital solutions. One of the inspiring about her is that many times established journals thought her ideas were ridiculous and undo-able.Another inspiring thing about her is that she created her own undergraduate major that combined several disciplines. She also started her PhD program in a subject she had had no previous experience in, but had the confidence and grit and determination and curiosity to push through.

Here is  lab we visited. Students again think up and create solutions to problems plaguing developing countries. Some examples we saw were bike powered washing machines, ways of using corn cobs to create charcoal, wheel chairs that can maneuver around rough terrain.

Here is a link to the inventor of Fenugreen. She had the germ of her idea as a middle school or high school student and kept thinking about it but not pursuing it. She then tried to pursue it once with bad results. Then she put it away again. Then finally things slowly took off and she is currently working full time on her product.

The collegiate student winners were also inspiring. Some messages I hope the HS students listening to them took away:

1. Be curious, be open, be persistent,  have a team.
2. Just because you are "average" in high school, does not mean you can't go on to do amazing things later.
3. Be passionate about what you do, and work hard.
4. Do things not because it will just look good on your resume, but because you are genuinely interested in them.

When am I Ever Going to Use This?

After 16 years of teaching, I know this question comes up at various times throughout EVERY year. I gauge the intention of the asker. Do they just want to waste time, so they can sit and zone out? Are they being ornery? Do they really want to know? I also have changed every year I teach, and as I ponder the question myself throughout the years.

The subject came up again during the last days of school when my seniors in calculus were going over good and bad things throughout their HS lives. One student mentioned the fact that she learned things she would never use again, and was maybe wondering what the point of it all was. My response to her was many fold but brief since others wanted to have their say on their HS experiences. I responded that even though I haven't directly used biology, for example, EVER after HS, I'm glad I learned it because now when news stories come up or research advances, I can be part of the conversation and have a semi-inkling of what's being discussed and what's at stake, and more importantly, I know enough to go find more information if I so choose. I also mentioned that learning a wide variety of things makes you a well-rounded person and it would be a shame if everyone only knew limited things because then their lives would be more constrained.

But in math class when students ask (and maybe I'm naive, but I think they truly want to know most of the time), I start out with, "you may never directly use this, but here is how it is used by others ....." and I make sure to have an example, or mention that I'll find one and get back to them.

I think a broader answer could be, "future employers want to know that you can learn challenging things that you're maybe not so interested in and then be able to apply them successfully in your work situation." Another answer could be, " learning and mastering and struggling through difficult-for-you concepts makes you smarter and more confident in learning in general." I guess we could also add, that when you stop learning or trying to learn things, then your brain starts to get flabby and liquidy and ooze out of your ears. That's not going to be good for anyone.

Changing Perspectives

Through a random conversation during the meetings held the last day of school, I was made aware of THIS. Or visually, this:

Whoa! Was I the only one that didn't know about this? I guess whoever was "first" in creating maps had a lead on others and decided the "normal" way for world maps to be drawn. Now it's convention (or maybe only in various northern hemisphere countries), and this way of seeing the world is unsettling.

Maybe we need to see more unsettling things in our lives to get us out of our rut, and maybe we need to interact with people who don't think and live like we do - even if it is unsettling, or maybe especially if it is unsettling.

Let the Summer Games Begin

NOW summer officially starts! Yesterday we had our commencement for our first graduating class. The day before we had rehearsals. The night after we had our end of the year party. Done.

Of course I use the term "summer" loosely, since I still get to go to Boston to finish up our inventing project. Then I have an online course to learn to create Apps on Androids. Then I have First Bytes summer camp to learn new things at. Then I have to figure out FTC to coach it next year. Then I am on call for 2 months for Federal Jury Duty. Then I have to create CS1 and a CS3 curriculum. But other than that, it's lazy days. And by lazy, I of course mean getting enough sleep and sneaking in puzzles and reading and web surfing and movies and time with friends and the popular and fun game of stay-away-from-the-refrigerator/cupboards.

Maybe like everyone else, I'll have this grandiose list of things I want to accomplish this summer (fun and work), and then as it most often happens, I'll panic when there are only 2 weeks left of summer and there are not enough crossings off of the list. Another fun summer game.

Best.Day.Ever.

Or maybe that's just the wine talking through my fingers. You know how some people drunk dial? Well, maybe there's something called blotto blogging (if one glass of wine classifies as blotto).

And you know how just sometimes practically EVERYTHING goes right in your school day? Yeah, me neither. But today was one of those twice-every-2-years days, so I just wanted to rethink it on my late night drive home and capture it to absorb all the good feelings out of it before it's back to stressful business as usual.

It started out with treating myself to a Starbucks latte for the morning. Then I treated myself to buying a tasty salad for lunch to look forward to (hellooooooo ripe avocado and tons of balsamic vinegar, doing anything for lunch?).

Then for calculus everyone had brought in a shirt to decorate, and we all got woozy with all the sharpie fumes as we signed each others shirts.

Then in Digital Electronics, we perfected our choreography of the BoeBots and filmed it. Their homework is to make the video go viral (otherwise, "F for you my kidlets!").

Then in APCS, we did a "gallery walk" and played each others graphics games we made. Then I had some random kids staying after school, and we had fun conversations while they were working on things.

Then I stayed for our First Annual Media Tech Movie Showcase and got to see animated films and short films and documentaries our seniors/juniors had made in their 3-4 years in that pathway. THEN as if that's not fun enough, I got to go to my favorite TexMex place for the best nachos EVER (and said glass of wine). CabSav, thank you for asking.

Whew! What can top this? Oh. All that grading I've put off and the finals I have to tweak and copy and grade and the pigsty some teacher keeps INSISTING on leaving on my desk and in my room in general. Who's the jerk!

FYI: Seniors are SO Over School

I know that will be a shocker to many of you, but this is the vibe going around our school. We have another 3 weeks left, so I am giving this assignment to my seniors. Hopefully, it can perk them up, or WAY more important, not bring ME down.

Digital Electronics Boe-Bots

We're ending our year of DE with the Boe-Bot unit. Practically none of my students have experience with putting together things or with programming, so I'm happy with this unit. I'm not much following the PLTW curriculum due to time constraints and interest, but due to a conversation I had with the kids, we're ALL excited about what direction things took.

Last year I had my kids learn to program and use subroutines and then put them to use in running through a unique maze (one per group). This had varying degrees of success. I could have made it better with having more scaffolding and intermittent grades instead of at the very end. Live and learn.

This year, I mentioned the maze idea to my current students, and then, I don't know who, but we mentioned a group choreographed dance with the 7 Boe-Bots (I'm building one, too). We all suddenly got excited, and I scrapped the maze idea and now we keep joking that we MUST. GO. VIRAL. Isn't that all the rage these days. Are you anything if you're not viral on the Internet at least once? Will our lives mean nothing?

I created a short "dance". There are solos. There's a chorus. There's a "wave". There's an entrance and exit. The students have all done the subroutines (12 of them: move forward 1 tile, move forward one rotation, turn right 90 degrees, pivot...., etc). See what I did there? I learned from last year and made those all a grade with a due date. Go me (for now). Now on Tuesday we will code up the choreography and work out the bugs and video tape (is that even the term anymore?) and Hello Bacteria or Virus. Here we come. 

Exam Stress

The AP Calculus AB exam is in a few days, and of course we are hard-core reviewing and mock testing and discussing the whole year in preparation. One of my students asked me to make them inspirational messages, and my first thought was that I would video various teachers around campus rooting for them and post it on Haiku. That didn't happen. Instead, I've been finding funny pictures and writing some goofy message related to studying and/or math and/or testing, etc and sending them out daily. They seem to like this.

But this post is really about how much brain space you use when you are stressed or focusing on things OTHER than the question you are answering on a timed test and then stressing while you are watching the time tick down and knowing you SHOULDN'T be thinking about the "other" thing and then stressing more because you are wasting time and then trying to refocus on the problem and then stressing because it's not IMMEDIATELY on the tip of your brain, and then the whole cycle repeats itself.

Oy! Who hasn't been there. I forgot about this AGAIN, and haven't really had a discussion with my class about it. And I don't know if there is a solution. But here's what brought it to my mind this week.

My class was doing a timed Free Response question, and I gave them 15 minutes, and put the timer on the document camera, so we could gauge our time (I was doing the problem with them). A couple of things you need to know. This year, I checked out TI-nspire calculators to my 22 students. I've also been providing batteries (well, our department has). They absorb and go through the batteries FAST. I've since mentioned that we are out of money, and the students have to buy a fresh pack of batteries before Wednesday for the test. So, back to test day this past week. One student (who I have an up and down history with in terms of attitude) right before the test mentioned that her batteries were out, and could she borrow another TI-nspire for the FRQ in class. Yes.

So the test starts, and I start the timer, and I start taking the test with them. A few minutes into it, I hear this noisiness at that student's table. I look over, and she's transferring the batteries from "my" calculator to her calculator, and then proceeds to use her calculator. Then I start seething and thinking the worst. Then I start not concentrating on the question. Then I start looking at the timer and stressing because I'm not focusing and I'm not making progress on the problem. Then I start cursing her in my mind and thinking about all sorts of reasons she's doing this. Bla bla bla. Then I start thinking about how this is what the students must be feeling when they're in a timed stressful test situation and "WELCOME TO THEIR WORLD".

Anyway, the timer went off. NO I did not finish. I waited to see what the student would do. Would she just hand back my calculator with the bad batteries? Class was ending. She didn't say anything. I didn't want to be too accusatory, but I asked for the calculator back and asked her if it was her dead batteries or mine in there. She mentioned that the glide pad wasn't working on "mine", so that's why she transferred batteries .... (but then she didn't retransfer, hmmmmm).

Long post longer. I need to have a discussion on Monday with (half) my class (others are in the APES exam) (hah! APES .... AP Environmental Science) about stress and brain space and such during a timed test. Any suggestions on what could make me/them/anyone refocus on the problem at hand instead of other non-test brain activity? Thanks in advance.