Well, my grand scheme of students filling different jobs on a software team isn't totally going to work, but it definitely got me in the right mindset, thinking about how students are going to work together as a class. Today I went around to the students and interviewed them on their interests, dug for more information when I had to, and tried to figure out what kinds of projects each student would be doing. I'm halfway through the morning students (the bigger class, plus a couple of special needs kids, means I spend more time answering questions and putting out fires), but we have the afternoon class set. Here's what the PM class will be doing:
- Java programming
- building computers (2 of the second-years who need to develop some organizational skills and want to know more about hardware than they already know will be in charge of creating the lectures and teaching other students. I will be one of the students and will help them)
- web design, HTML, JS
The AM class will do some of those things, plus a few students who are interested in typing and doing some dictation (I have one student set up to download audio from npr.org to practice transcription, and if she wants to do medical transcription I'll start her learning medical vocab).
One thing struck me today: the importance of not making assumptions about students' abilities, interests, or behavior. One student (who slumped in his chair, said he hates school and doesn't want to do anything in class) had written as a goal, "stop skipping class so much". Turns out he only goes to class if he likes the teacher; he went to history a lot last year, even though he hates history, just because he liked the teacher. But he loves math. His whole face lit up when he talked about how much he loves math. But he skips all the time because he hates the teacher. Loves problem solving. Bilingual. I told him I'd like him to try programming because I think he'd be good at it and it would be a challenge for him. Hope I'm right.
This class is a 3-ring circus for sure.