Plan: return exams, start Excel,
I did both of those. Details tonight or tomorrow. Maybe Charles will post his comment even before I get to mine.
Friday morning – he did. (Thanks for the compliment, Charles).
The numerical scores on the exam were potentially frightening – highest score 84%, many in the 50s. I held off returning the papers until this class so I could provide a paragraph or two for each student offering an assessment of a probable grade-so-far. There were a reasonable number of Bs, even among the 50s, based on homeworks and demonstrated ability and willingness to think and learn, even if a disappointing number of exam problems were wrong. I had a chance to warn the students at real risk, and to encourage glimmers of understanding in others.
I just handed the papers back. We didn’t discuss them. The real business of the day was Excel.
My regular environment is a PC (though I now have linux in my office, checking that the book’s spreadsheets work in Open Office). The lab has Macs, which means I don’t always know what to do next. That’s actually an advantage. The students can see me stumble and recover – perhaps they can learn the same skills.
A small class really does help. Mine has only 13 students, and only half of them were there. Teaching Excel to seven students (some already familiar with the software), with a tutor and Charles in the room is a luxury. But I worry about how the other half of the class will fare.
Many of the students learned Excel in high school. I wonder what the focus was. I think the most important feature is the ability to ask “what if” questions. I’ll push that hard when talking about term papers.
Substantive progress: we worked on the Wing Aero data, sorting, summing and averaging. I think the stage is properly set for median, histograms and mode next week, which will take us to spring break.
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