Fantasy Stock Market

My Introduction to Economics course consists of the same students from the Money, Banking and Finance class.  The content is intended to be more microeconomics and project based learning.  This semester students participate in a fantasy stock market, creating their own business plan, and learn the theory of the firm.

The first week back I set up students for their first project by showing them a documentary in class on the Financial Crisis of 2008.  I've noticed that if I assign videos outside of class two results occur: students don't watch the video, or students don't get the full value of the film.   Thus I showed the film in class to encourage dialogue and provide context.

This previous week, I've worked with students on understanding the general principles and vocabularies of financial investing.  They were given self directed, independent vocabulary questions.  They filled out the vocab terms to the best of their ability.  While their definitions were accurate, students could not place the vocab in context or explain them in their own words.  Therefore, we discussed as a class the vocab in the context of example stocks (such as Apple).

Students now have sufficient background on investing to begin exploring stocks.  They've been tasked with assembling a simulated 100,000 dollar portfolio.  The simulation is run through the Wall Street Journal's web page.  Students are in a league with one another and are both are attempting to achieve instructor provided goals and competing with the rest of the class.  Students will be given a few days of independent research time to assemble their portfolio.

I plan on using Khan videos to provide supplemental support to students who have questions about financial markets.  My next post will follow the completion of this assignment.

Students hate holes

Well, it happened. I didn't see it coming, and would have never expected it. My students like doing physics problems more than doing labs. And specifically, my students like doing Webassign online homework problems more than labs. In fact, they have been asking me over and over, "When do we get to do Webassign again?"

To put this into context, if you even mention the word "Webassign" to any of my students from previous years, they will give a long groan and say something like "Uggggh, Webassign was horrible. I hated Webassign." In fact, Webassign was probably their least favorite part of my course.

So for my students this year (blended and non-blended) to repeatedly request Webassign, and repeatedly say "I like Webasssign" with no prompting from me is absolutely mind blowing for me. And I am pretty sure I know why their experience this year is so much better than previous years.

The incremental sets of problems that I wrote over the summer are the main difference in my teaching this year. Briefly, the difference between the problems I wrote and the previous problems I used (which were just publisher problems from the back of a book), is that the problems I created were made specifically so that they can be grouped into sub-skills and ordered in a logical progression from the easiest possible problem to the hardest possible problem with very few gaps in between. This makes the number of problems assigned much larger this year than in previous years. It also makes it so that the hardest problems of a problem set are actually quite involved and complex.

But, think about what this means. Students are doing way more Webassign problems than ever before, and harder problems than ever before, and they are enjoying them more than ever before. I feel like I'm onto something here. It doesn't seem to inherently be the length of a problem set, or the difficulty of a problem set that students dislike. It is the holes in a problem set that students don't like.

My takeaway is this:

1. Students really do their learning when they are forced to use the material (not during lectures and videos). So I should spend much more of my time on making quality problem sets than trying to improve the quality of my lectures.
2. Students get very frustrated when they get stuck on a problem that requires them to learn multiple skills at the same time. So I should break material down into sub skills and let students master each one before having them try to put them all together in a single problem.
3. Students respond well when they feel like they are actually making progress. So I should make problem sets where one problem builds off the previous problem and gets progressively harder.

There is one slight problem here. Creating a problem set in a logical order from easiest to hardest with no gaps for each sub skill takes a long time. Still, once they are made they can be used over and over. And I've seen enough to convince me to keep making them.

4th Grade - Khan Reflection

As the semester ended last Friday, it is time to take a look back at my interactions with Khan since the start of the school year.  I have included reflections of my own as well as from my class.

Pros

• My students love using the computer to do work.
• Khan sometimes teaches a concept using a different strategy than I would have used.
• Instant feedback on "assignment".
• Parents can see how their child is doing.
• Students love winning points and badges and competing for things.
• Ability to explore beyond what I teach.
• Can use it at home or school - just need internet connection.
• Endless practice problems.

Cons

• It is hard to find existing Khan videos that supplement a concept or skill without going into way more detail than the text or I would have, or way less.
• Students recorded work in a journal and I'm not sure they gained much from this.
• The momentum and excitement died down as the term progressed.
• I had intended to use Khan as a pre-teach so that my class lessons could be more in depth.  However, at this level you can only go so in depth before you've covered an entirely new topic.  On the occasions when I tried this, we later got to the lesson of the more advanced topic in the book and half my class remembered it and the rest did not.  I then had to do a sort of reteaching but still try to engage those who weren't being challenged at that point.  
• Students sometimes do not understand how a concept or skill is explained.
• Videos can be lengthy.
• Voice can get boring.
• At the beginning or the year there are a great deal of new concepts to cover and it was easier to find correlating videos. Now that many concepts build on prior skills there are not videos to correspond with this. 

Going forward....

This semester I will see what I can adapt and change to make sure that my student's Khan experiences are impactful.

Semester 1 Summary for Organic Chemistry

Just some end of semester thoughts on the use of Khan Academy for O-Chem from myself and the students. All students are seniors.

My thoughts:

1. The class is progressing at a slower pace than classes from the past few years.  There are a couple of reasons for this lag.  Firstly, students have more questions about the material and secondly, the students want to do ‘labs’ when they are in class and this is to be expected since it is a science class.
2. The depth and breadth of the material at the beginning of the course is very complete, however as one progresses thru the material, both of these dimensions shrink so the amount of supplement material needs to increase exponentially.
3. The students’ ability to become independent learners has grown and I suspect that a significant contributor is the use of these videos and holding the students accountable for the content in the videos.

Student thoughts (translated and summarized by me but approved by them):

1.   Students find the schedule of this class a definite plus since it affords them the ability to manage their time.  They have suggested that a class like this is important for all seniors to take since it is a transition to the college style of classes.

2.   The students have suggested that the videos are boring – they want animations, pictures, models other that the talking and writing on a board for 15-20 minutes.

3.   The students want a summary or key points more clearly delineated so that they know what to focus on – the videos lack the use of bold face, underlining or some other strategy for illustrating the major points.

4.   Students are thrilled with the ease of access to the material and have used it (ochem and other topics such as math) when they were off campus for sporting events or illness.  It really ‘helps in staying on top of the information’.

In all, the structure of the class is a real positive and while the videos have good content, they are insufficient for learning the material at the level that our students are capable of mastering.  

Semester 1 Reflections (4th grade Mrs. SP)

After using Khan and other online sources for a semester, I have mixed feelings about it.
Pros: I find it useful that when we have an online homework topic we are able to talk more meaningfully about it.
Students are able to ask me questions about a topic without fear of being made fun of by their peers because it is written down in a notebook and turned in to me.
Students like to have their question chosen as the one to lead off our discussion of the topic.
Students are excited about it and like the change of pace.

Cons: Terminology used in the videos tends to confuse some of the students.
Problems on the Khan Academy site are sometimes unpredictable within a topic leading to a difficulty to explain a problem type in such a way that it will not cause more confusion.
Checking in homework is very time consuming because an effort is made to answer all questions posed in the notebook, regardless of whether or not the question is then asked in class.

The second semester has more new topics that will be introduced to the students. That will be a truer test for whether my students can succeed using Khan and other online resources.