I Don't Want to Play Dodgeball, I Want to Keep Playing with the Bead Tool!

It has been a month since we started the after school program at the Arc Community Charter School and now the students are solely using the computers on their own. After the complaints last week that they did not have enough time on the computers we decided to spend the entire hour on the computers. The students ate their pizza as we hurried to set up the computers then we had the students start using the software. The students were simply told to pick a design on the right to recreate. The students still struggled with plotting points and it was difficult to not just tell them how to do it. I tried to have the students break the design into simple shapes and what points make up those shapes. Once they figured out what points made those shapes I would have them plot one point and look at the points around it. For instance, they put one point down then saw that six of the same color are stacked on top of it I would have them keep increasing the Y number and hit enter until it looked like the reference picture. This method worked for most students but of course there are always students that just want to do their own thing. One student wanted to make a star out of lines and I taught him about about how lines are made out of two points and how to find the start and end points. It was a struggle at first but by the end he was making symmetrical lines on his own and completed his own design. It was a very busy hour bouncing around helping students but the best part came when we lost track of time and realized it was time to cleanup. All of the students complained and wanted to stay there instead of playing dodge ball at the Troy Boys and Girls Club. This situation shows that these simple tools is just as engaging as a video or computer game yet the students are learning without even realizing it!

Can I Have the Website?

Today was the first day that we were using the computers. The hardest part of the computers was setting them up. The computers were located in a different room and none of them held a charge so they all had to be plugged in. Therefore while the students were eating pizza we had to quickly set up each computer and find power strips to plug in all twenty laptops. Once we finally got all of the computers plugged in and really to go we had the students find the website and go to the culture section. Once you put students on the internet it is hard to keep them on the webpage and not start playing games. Fortunately, we had some great help from a teacher at the Arc Community Charter School. We had student volunteer to read the culture sections online to review the idea of four fold symmetry. In the last fifteen minutes we had the students explore the Virtual Bead Loom tool. They did not quite understand how to plot points to create a design that they chose so it was a little difficult at times. For the students I help I had they place one bead anywhere then I had them change the X or Y to one less and see what happened. After a couple of times they figured out how to move in different directions. The last fifteen minutes flew by and then it was time to go to the Troy Boys and Girls Club but the students did not want to pack up and leave. One student even came up to me and asked if I could write down the website so he could use the tools at home. I feel that the fact the student wanted to learn more shows that the tools are successful. I can't wait to see what they learn in future sessions!

What is Symmetry?

The second week of the program was both exciting and crazy. Our after school program now has twenty students. There are mostly fourth graders but there is now one fifth grader and two sixth graders. With twenty students and three RPI student teachers it was quite a challenge to get them to pay attention when they were so eager to get started. While the students were eating their pizza we had a discussion about four-fold symmetry and Native American beading. The students were broken up into three groups and each group was given a picture of a Native American beaded pattern and were asked to fold the picture one so that it is the same on both sides. Once they completed that I asked them to fold it again so that it had the same image in all four boxes. This was also very easy for them. After this we broke them into three groups to teach them basic graph skills and plotting points. There were three stations, one just exploring the software on the computer, one making a four fold design and then finding the points that make up the design and finally one that the students had to direct other students to find an object on a grid. I was assigned the task to lead the last station and it was more rewarding than I could have ever imagined.

I placed an object in a square on the grid and asked one student to stand at a corner of the grid and assigned them a partner to give them directions to the object. The student at the corner was only allowed to move according to the directions the other student gave. At first the students just kept giving directions such as left, right, up and down. For instance, a typical dialog was left, left, up, up, up, right, right,up. Then I told the students to use numbers in their directions and I got four left, up five and right 2. Finally, I had the students try to use negative numbers when they were going left or down. This was hard for the students that have never seen negative numbers and without the help of X and Y axises, but eventually it was starting to come more naturally. After each student got the opportunity to be both the person giving directions and the person moving we switched to another activity. I gave students a bag of shapes and each shape had four copies of it. I then asked the students to work together to create a four-fold symmetry design. They started in one of the corners and made a design then the took a copy of each of the shapes and physically flipped them to make the other three corners. After doing this activity they really seemed to understand the the idea of four fold symmetry.

During both of these activities I struggled with the balance with telling them how to do something and letting them figure it out on their own. I found that the best practice is to just have them start and see where they go and tailor your lesson to that. This is because they start with what they know and understand and you can build from that. This removes the problem of teaching above them and then having to backtrack. I also understand that this is not ideal but I feel that it is an excellent practice if time allows.