Wednesday, January 30, 2013

I think I'm gonna like this class.

I had lab again this afternoon, with the class I talked about last week. Again, the lab wasn't *hard*, but it was sort of fiddly and took some attention to detail.

This is another lab exercise where, some semesters, one group messes it up spectacularly and has to start over. I tend to hover during the early stages just in case.

This group? I did the pre-lab, turned 'em loose, and they did it, again with just a minor procedural question or two. And they got it. No one screwed it up, several people independently showed me that they understood the underlying principles. They even all got done early - I could have done another exercise in class today. (I decided not to, because the last time I did this lab, two groups messed it up badly enough that they didn't get finished by the end of the lab time).

It's not just a matter of smarts in these cases; it's a matter of maturity and being able to say, "Okay, this has something to teach me so I'm going to sit down and work on it" instead of slacking off and screwing around. Luckily for me, it looks like this class has both smarts and maturity.

1 comment:

Kate P said...

That's awesome! What a gem of a class.

As you might know, I unexpectedly wound up teaching computer classes this year. . . I have one section of 5th graders who come in just with such enthusiasm and willingness to try/interest in learning. It's fun.