Project Redux

So my fun projects/presentations are almost all in and on the whole they are: alright. I thought about classifying them as "not bad", but that sounded too good. I thought about classifying them as shockingly medicore, but I realize now I should not be shocked. Though I tried, I did not do a good job of giving feedback and guidance along the way. So in the end I think that each student group in their own earnest way did really work hard to learn about the things that I had asked them to learn, but what they didn't do was learn it well enough to explain it to others. There explanations were on the whole subpar. I found myself sitting there wondering if this is what they experience everyday from me. I think I will delude myself with some of my student evaluations from previous years to stop that thought. As usual my students failed in planning their presentations to think about one important thing: the audience. Most talked directly to me the whole time, or to the board. They expected me to say things like "right", "wrong", "yes", and, "I see". I ended up saying some of that stuff, oh well.

So how do I feel about the experiment. I think that I have to do it again. It can be better, and they can do a better job of communicating their thoughts. If they can't they desperately need the practice. What was also interesting was how the students went about using technology. Some eschewed it completely. That didn't necessarily help their presentations. They argued while they gave a team presentation, they said "I don't really understand this". They didn't rehearse. All in all there was room for improvement. But I did help one group make a mathcast of an argument to show that the square encloses the largest area of any rectangle of a certain perimeter. And after we were done the student was so excited to see what they had made. It was pretty dry mathematics, but they were excited to see what they had done with it. Sort of made the whole thing worthwhile.