Waves Hello

It has been quite the busy couple of weeks.

I started back to school two weeks ago. This year, I am teaching two sections of my class. And I've been lucky to get two good sections. I'm really enjoying this.

When I was teaching my first semester, I was looking for an activity that would engage the students and would teach them about the theme of my course. I came up with a great idea of having the students build a structure made from marshmallows and spaghetti or toothpicks. The trick is that they are assigned personalities that will make success difficult. This does a great job of teaching them working together. If we were to change the personalities to say contractor, subcontractor, government agency, and construction inspector - you have the dynamics of a building site.

All freshman engineering students take some core courses together. The department that teaches these learned about this activity because one of their instructors asked me to do it with their summer youth (middle school/high school age kids). They decided that these concepts and method of teaching them were wonderful for all the freshman engineering classes. I've giving the activity to this group. If we are still here and I teach next year, I'll find another activity. I think that this will be a great way to teach so many students the importance of knowing how their approach can help and hinder a project they are working on both in school and after.

The girls are enjoying school. They each got their first choice teachers. Sarah had a conversation with the boy who bullied her last year. He started teasing her a bit and another boy told him to back off. Then the group of them started talking about other things and she seemed to really enjoy the conversation. Sydney, she's just smiling and spinning her way through life.

I have more to say, but I have 40 papers to grade, a house to clean, and things to do.