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Sudoku:

Cleat's and Ashley's thoughts on Sudoku varied...perhaps the Brain Drain words that came to mind will explain.

Cleat: "I don't like it. I don't like puzzles. It bores me."

Ashley: "It's better on paper."
Teal: "purple, Japanese characters"

Cleat, a self-proclaimed "letter" person (as opposed to numbers) prefers games like crossword puzzles, possibly because they involve prior knowledge/some trivia knowledge, while each Sudoku puzzle requires a fresh take.  Additionally, he hasn't made any connections between the material we've been discussing and the skills needed to solve a Sudoku puzzle; he prefers feeling over logic. We made a connection between his attitude toward Sudoku and getting students interested in topics they initially find boring or unnecesssary.  How do you get a child to try something out for long enough to make connections or start to like the material?  In Cleat's case, it might be useful to try playing a Sudoku puzzle that uses letters or colors, rather than numbers.  Ashley finds it harder to solve the puzzle online, and thinks it would be easier to solve on paper so she could have a space to write her notes directly next to the puzzle instead of on a separate piece of paper.

Mini-Projects

Brain Drain results: 

Cleat: work, small, make it interesting

Ashley: interesting, new, anything

Teal: birds, words, pictures

The mini-projects thus far have been useful in that they provide a creative outlet for participants to apply our material to topics that interest them.  They have the potential for being a useful classroom tool in that students can apply what they learn in a structured setting to something more free-form and personal, thus giving them more authority to use what they have learned.

Cleat's project is going to connect our discussions on thought to theater and performance, particularly the notion of actors trying to reach a definite truth and bring a certain reality to their audience.  He argues that in science, observations are constantly being made and truth is never attained; in theater, observations are always being made but a certain truth has to be reached in order to complete a performance in a way that truly reaches the feelings of the audience.  Ashley commented on how theater, unlike other subjects, can be enjoyable even if you're not participating but rather just observing. Her mini project concerns quantum tunneling and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, a physical enigma that involves objects existing in two states at once up until they are observed (at which point they choose to be in either one state or another).  Her aim is to further understand this phenomenon in terms of practical applications (such as pressure-sensitive touch phones) and helping society.

General Thoughts on Discussion So Far

Brain Drain Results:

Cleat: interesting, thoughtful, truth

Ashley: culture

Culture and the way it is reflected in student behavior in the classroom has been an interesting point of discussion this week.  Ashley acknowledged that she needs to be more understanding and open to students' culture in the classroom, regarding how it influences their behavior.  It's hard to understand their behavior sometimes, she says, because she was raised in a disciplined environment. For example, she finds it hard to understand how some students wish to call their teachers by their first names because she was raised in a household where calling adults by their last name was a sign of respect.  Cleat was also raised  in this type of environment and asks his students to call him by his last name, but doesn't think that a first name basis would affect the learning environment; "you learn if you want to learn."  Both are interested in the way upbringing and culture lead to certain behaviors in the classroom (they can both identify which students come from which types of homes) and learning how to further their dialogue/communication with students from all different backgrounds on an individual basis.