Thursday, August 11, 2011

Flipping The Classroom: "To flip or not to flip," that is the question!


What follows is an email I recently posted to the AP Computer Science listserv that I thought you'd appreciate:

Flipping the classroom has been a controversial issue for science teachers for some time now as evidenced on the AP Physics listserv. It's only natural that we, as Computer Science teachers, would like to emulate this fad. The idea is this:

(1) if you have sufficient electronic materials such as ppts, pdfs or mp4s, and
(2) if you have sufficiently motivated students ready for said material, then
(3) you can assign most of the traditional class work to be done at home, and
(4) you can focus on the lab work with the students in class!

The problem is that this model is meant to make the most of lab time for lab intensive courses. However, many teachers are flipping their classes even if they teach non-lab based courses. For example, some on the AP Calculus listserv are doing this. I have resisted this trend as I think that the students loose something in the translation. They are there, at least in part, to benefit from your guidance. You can flip a few classes or a unit or two for variety's sake and to see how it works for you. However, if you flip the whole class, you miss interacting with the students and adding your unique perspective on the topic at hand.

The Flipping Trend is a hard one for me to ignore as I have many of my classes recorded as ScreenCasts and SmartNotes that the students could easily view online at home and still get my perspective on things. I share these files with my students already for those that need to review a difficult concept or need to make up work due to an absence. I post these files as mp4s and pdfs on my ftp, blogspot, youtube, slideshare, pastebin and edmodo sites. I don't think I'd flip a Math class. However, my Computer Science classes could use more lab time....

Here's the rub: most of our students are not as well prepared or dedicated as we would like to think. So, many students probably won't complete the assignment at home. Those students will still be wasting lab time trying to catch up on what they missed at home. Let's face it, today's AP students are way too over booked with other AP courses and activities. Now the student is even farther behind the 8-ball!

HTH,
A. Jorge Garcia
Applied Math and CompSci
http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/calcpage2009

Well, that's my 2 cents for the week. I am now stepping off the soap box.

Generally Speaking,

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Fare Thee Well, Summer Session II, Part 3: The ScreenCasts!

Holy cow, Summer Session II is over tonight? We have covered 5 whole weeks of Calculus already? Actuallly, what I should be asking is: "How the heck did we cram Calculus I into 5 weeks?" 

Well, I already blogged about the first week, 

Also, I had previously blogged about my tech setup:

What follows are my ScreenCasts for all 5 weeks!


Week 1
201 = 2.1 measuring speed, 2.2 derivative at a point
202 = 2.3 Derivative Function, 2.4 Interpretations, 2.5 Second Derivative
203 = 2.6 Continuity, AppC Newton’s Method

Week 2
301 = 3.1 Polynomials, 3.2 Exponentials, 3.3 Product and Quotient Rules
302 = 3.4 + 3.6 Chain Rule, 3.5 Trigonometric Functions
303 = 3.7 Implicit Differentiation, 3.9 Approximations, 3.10 Theorems

Week 3
401 = 4.1 First and Second Derivative Tests, 4.2 Optimization
402 = 4.3 Family of Curves, 4.4 Modeling
403 = 4.6 Related Rates,  4.7 L’Hopital’s Rule

Week 4
501 = 5.1 Distance Traveled
502 = 5.2 Definite Integrals
601 = 6.1 + 6.2 Anti-Derivatives

Week 5
602 = 6.3 Differential Equations
701 = 7.1 U-Substitution
1101 = 11.4 Variable Separable, 11.5 Word Problems


HTH, I hope you enjoyed Calculus I this summer!


Learning with Technology, 

Friday, August 5, 2011

Fare Thee Well, Summer Session II, Part 2: The YouTubes!

Holy cow, Summer Session II is over tonight? We have covered 5 whole weeks of Calculus already? Actuallly, what I should be asking is: "How the heck did we cram Calculus I into 5 weeks?" 

Well, I already blogged about the first week, 

Also, I had previously blogged about my tech setup:

What follows are the YouTubes I used to break up the class routine! I usually started each class with a review of the homework, then I showed one of the following "educational" YouTubes and then I started the actual lesson.


Week 1
201 = mathematicious
202 = I will derive
203 = calculus rhapsody

Week 2
301 = calculus summer
302 = theorem night
303 = sleigh bells

Week 3
401 = hopper1
402 = hopper2
403 = hopper+letterman

Week 4
501 = Lehrer – new math
502 = Lehrer – periodic tablex2 videos

and
601 = Lehrer – lobachevsky

Week 5
602 = archimedes
701 = pauschx2 videos
1101 = escalantex3 videos

HTH, I hope you enjoyed Calculus I this summer!


Learning with Technology, 

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Fare Thee Well, Summer Session II, Part 1: The SmartNotes!

Holy cow, Summer Session II is over tonight? We have covered 5 whole weeks of Calculus already? Actuallly, what I should be asking is: "How the heck did we cram Calculus I into 5 weeks?" 


Well, I already blogged about the first week, 
http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com/2011/07/welcome-to-summer-session-ii.html


Also, I had previously blogged about my tech setup:
http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com/2011/07/taking-show-on-road.html


We met 4 nights a week for about 2.5 hours. I presented new material the first 3 days each day. The 4th day of each week was devoted to testing. What follows are my SmartNotes from all 5 weeks!



Week 1
201 = 2.1 measuring speed, 2.2 derivative at a point


202 = 2.3 Derivative Function, 2.4 Interpretations, 2.5 Second Derivative
202
View more documents from A Jorge Garcia


203 = 2.6 Continuity, AppC Newton’s Method




Week 2

301 = 3.1 Polynomials, 3.2 Exponentials, 3.3 Product and Quotient Rules

View more documents from A Jorge Garcia


302 = 3.4 + 3.6 Chain Rule, 3.5 Trigonometric Functions

View more documents from A Jorge Garcia


303 = 3.7 Implicit Differentiation, 3.9 Approximations, 3.10 Theorems

View more documents from A Jorge Garcia

Week 3

401 = 4.1 First and Second Derivative Tests, 4.2 Optimization

View more documents from A Jorge Garcia


402 = 4.3 Family of Curves, 4.4 Modeling

View more documents from A Jorge Garcia


403 = 4.6 Related Rates,  4.7 L’Hopital’s Rule


View more documents from A Jorge Garcia


Week 4

501 = 5.1 Distance Traveled


View more documents from A Jorge Garcia


502 = 5.2 Definite Integrals


View more documents from A Jorge Garcia


601 = 6.1 + 6.2 Anti-Derivatives


View more documents from A Jorge Garcia


Week 5

602 = 6.3 Differential Equations


View more documents from A Jorge Garcia


701 = 7.1 U-Substitution


View more documents from A Jorge Garcia


1101 = 11.4 Variable Separable, 11.5 Word Problems


View more documents from A Jorge Garcia


HTH, I hope you enjoyed Calculus I this summer!

Learning with Technology, 

Monday, August 1, 2011

Opening Day Fun and Games!


What follows is the transcript of an email I sent to my tech dept at school today just so you can see what fun we are having already:

Dear Anonymous,

First off, thanx so much for all your help these past 2 days! I couldn't have gotten all 25 new PCs up and running without your assistance. Unfortunately, there's still some issues:

(1) The Good: aka what went right
I did a quick and simple 32bit Ubuntu 10.10 install on all the student stations. As I had a lot of meetings to go to as well, I didn't have a lot of time to play around. So, I basically just wiped all 250GB of each hdd and made a single partition. The only thing I configured was eth0 with static IPs from 10.5.129.1 thru 10.5.129.24 plus 255.255.0.0 netmask, 10.5.0.254 gateway and 10.1.1.19 dns. We no longer have dual partitions nor do we have dual NICs. Gone are the days of dual boot I suppose....

(2) The Bad: aka stuff that didn't go right
The two Linux servers cannot surf! Intranet (ie ping) works, so the students can do their work using ftp and ssh. I tried http://www.google.com, http://whatismyip.com and http://canyouseeme.org but had no joy. Firefox complained about not finding a DNS server and Chrome complained about finding no proxy server. My students can login to the servers in school and from home, but I need to surf in order to maintain these servers. Also, I need to make one of them into a LAMP server in order to run SAGE locally. For this, I need to download and configure a lot of utilities that are hard to acquire without being able to surf the internet!

IIRC, the servers are:
10.5.254.247
173.251.56.48
sftp://guardian.baldwinschools.net
and
10.5.254.244
173.251.56.45
ftp://caprica.baldwinschools.net

(3) The Ugly: aka what needs fixing first
(3a) PC 25, the Teacher Station, needs to be a dual boot box. I need Linux to teach and Windows for lots of legacy files on my h: drive. For example, I have literally 1000s of pages I've written over the years in Word using the inline Equation Editor (like TEX) that do not auto convert in OpenOffice. I simply don't have the time to retype all that stuff!
(3b) The SmartBoard will not power on even though the projector does. The green power switch is not lit and the board surface does not react to pens or touch. ...it worked yesterday.
(3c) The network printer was not found whenever I tried to enable printing on any of the new boxes.

You asked about DHCP. We've used it before, but I don't know if it was on VLAN5 or not. I assume you want to use DHCP for the Windows partition and a static IP for the Linux partition. 10.5.129.25 is the static IP I have been using for the Teacher Station.

A few more notes:
(1) I used the Linux on the Teacher Station (10.5.129.25) all day today to drive my SmartBoard and for a presentation at a meeting. I had to do this with a Linux CD since I couldn't install that station while I was waiting for the Windows partition to be reimaged so I could setup a dual boot box.

(2) There are two power switches at the front of the room that are supposed to cut power to all the Student Stations if necessary. The right switch kills the right side of the room and the left switch used to kill the left side of the room. The left switch only kills 10.5.129.17 thru 10.5.129.20, is there anyway we could repair this switch so it cuts power to 10.5.129.1-10.5.129.4 + 10.5.129.9-10.5.129.12 as it once did?

(3) We have a bit of water damage to the ceiling, due to Hurricane Irene, especially in the front left section of the room. We need to repair that too!

I hope you had better luck on your first day back to school! 


Teaching with Technology,