North Campus Tour

Two weeks ago, after much planning and lots of help from Carol Crammer and Angela Dixon we finally had an after school tour of U of M's north campus.  The tour was totally voluntary for the students in Mr. Tuttle's class and being after school (they only missed their last hour of class) we had a group of 11 students who had a real interest in engineering, math, or science.  The tour went through a number of research labs where graduate students generously gave their time to explain the neat robots, experiments, prosthetic limbs, and designs they were working on.  

Looking back I'm very happy with the way the tour turned out.  I think the Ypsi high students did a great job of listening and striving to understanding things.  It was always a challenge for the graduate students in each lab to cut down on the scientific jargon and describe things in an accessible way to our high school students.  A number of times I jumped in asking the graduate student to define terms like center of gravity, camshaft, and leaf spring.  It was a real charge for me every time the Ypsi students expressed further interest in an area.  One student, who often checks out in Mr. Tuttle's class, after inspecting a prothetic foot asked an insightful question related to designing the foot with more flexibility.  Another student got excited by some of the demonstrations in a lab, wanted to know what sort engineering this was called and what all kinds of things in the lab did.  A different student said, while we were walking between labs, that he wanted to be a biomedical engineer.  This was great to hear, since he had never heard of biomedical engineering until I described my job at Medtronic in front of Mr. Tuttle's class a few months ago.

During the tour I saw some areas for improvement for future tours.  We went from 2pm to 5:30pm, which was about an hour too long.  We didn't really have a choice about this since the buses could only pick us up and drop us off during this time frame, but the students were understandably dragging their feet at the end.  (We did have a snack break in the middle of the tour and this probably helped a lot though.)  Some labs probably could have used more than 15 minutes to demonstrate things and get the students involved in a short activity.  I was trying to impose as little as possible on each graduate student's time, but some of them were more than willing to create interactive demos if they were given more time.  In total, we visited 7 different labs.  I was trying to keep things moving in case a lab wasn't all that exciting, but I think I underestimated their attention span and it might have been better to visit 4 labs for 30 minutes each instead.

Once again, it was a good experience for everybody, and I certainly hope to find the time to plan another tour next semester.

Adults?

This happened a few weeks ago, but it sticks out in my mind. At the beginning of fourth hour in Mr. Tuttle's class, I was sitting across the way from two students. One had a pack of gum and Joe, the other student, wanted a piece, so he was offering 50 cents for a single stick of gum. The guy with the gum kept refusing, but then he slyly took the 50 cents right out of Joe's hand, put it in his pocket when Joe wasn't looking, and didn't give Joe any gum. Obviously, Joe was upset and demanded his money or a piece of gum. This wasn't banter between two friends: Joe felt bullied by this guy. I tried to step in, but it soon escalated to Mr. Tuttle's attention who asked Joe to move seats. Joe wasn't willing to let it go and the other guy just denied anything had happened. He claimed he didn't have Joe's money at all. Mr Tuttle decided to deal with this after he was done lecturing, so he made Joe move seats. For the next 20 minutes of class, Joe repeatedly made gestures and faces across the class towards the other student. Several times Joe asked for his money right in the middle of Mr. Tuttle's lecture. It finally got resolved when Mr. Tuttle went over during a work period and got the guy to cough up the money he stole.

Stealing someone's pocket change very clearly a display of power that could have easily come to blows had Joe decided to take his money back. On the other hand, Joe could have also gotten up in disgust, said, "You can have my measly 50 cents," and walked off. That would have ended it, with Joe taking the high road.

I know this sort of thing happens all the time in high school, given the headlocks I see in the hallways, and other heated exchanges. It's just amazing to me the way that these students so desperately want to be treated like adults, yet still do things like this. Don't get me wrong though, overall these are good kids that should come along fine. They just have plenty of growing up still to do.

Imperfect Interactions

So in my last two posts I may have seemed on top of this TF thing, so just to dispel any of those illusions, here is a post that details some of the less than perfect interactions I've had with students. I would say 90% of the time things go just fine when I try to help to students, so please don't take this post as me complaining. I just think these stories are interesting.

A number of students neglect to bring paper and pencil to class, so I often walk around handing out paper so they have something to take notes on. I walked up to one student and said, "Do you need any paper?" He blankly stared at me. I asked again, "Would you like some paper?" He continued to look right past me as if I wasn't even there. Getting a bit agitated, I asked, "Why are you ignoring me?" Still no response. Deciding that I need to chose my battles, I just left a piece of paper on his desk and walked off. In retrospect, I couldn't believe the nerve of that kid! I had never talked with him before, or even given him a disapproving look, so he had no reason to dislike me. Apparently, my being an authority figure is enough for him. Mind games...

Mr. Tuttle's 6th hour is often the craziest class. The students are understandably just itching to get out of their chairs after being forced to sit still all day. During a work period, one female student asked to go to the restroom and quietly said to Mr. Tuttle that is was an emergency. (On count day, students were not allowed to go use the restrooms during class, unless it was an emergency, in order to facilitate counting.) Another female student, saw her leave the classroom, and loudly asked, "Why does sheeee get to go the restroom!?" After having had a long day and being short on patience, I snapped, "Because it was an emergency!" She got a little miffed, but at the time I didn't care. Next week, I realized it'd be nice to apologize for barking at her, so during a free work period, I went over and started to say sorry. As I came over she saw me walk up, but she looked the other way, clearly distracted by something, and soon enough she got up to go check it out. I thought, ok, I'll try again later. About 5 minutes later, I started to say sorry again, but she was totally ignoring me and blatently looking the other way. Luckily this was apparent to a friend of hers, who was sitting right there, and said, "Hey, look at him, he's trying to say something to you." She then sheepishly looked at me, I apologized, and she murmured something unintelligible. She clearly felt uncomfortable about the situation. Weird! Perplexed, I later asked my wife, who is an elementary school teacher, what she thought. Her guess was maybe this girl just isn't used to adults saying sorry to her, so she felt awkward and didn't know how to respond.

In my previous post, I described how I try to approach students who don't seem to be working. It usually works, but there are times when it clearly doesn't. One student who sits in the back, is almost always messing around on her cell phone during work periods. She doesn't usually bother anyone, so I don't worry too much about it, but recently I went over to ask, "How's it comin?" She said, "Fine." I asked if I could help her with anything on her homework, and she said no. I pushed a little more, "Are you sure there is nothing you're confused about?" This was too much for her, so she responded, "No, and if there was, I wouldn't ask you. I don't know you." A little flustered, I said, "Well, ok then," and walked off.

Since these 3 situations, and a few other I have not described, I now pay more attention to these kids. I just tend to gravitate towards the tough cookies because they are more of a challenge. I ask each of them at least once every hour if they need help with anything. So far I've just gotten turned away, which is acceptable since they aren't bothering anyone else. My hope is that they will eventually get used to me, soften up, and let me give them a hand.

Benefit of having been a Tutor

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was a NSBE tutor last spring before I became a Teaching Fellow (TF). I primarily became a tutor because I didn't have the time to be TF last spring, but it also prepared me to be in the classroom. Mr. Tuttle has remedial Algebra as his first hour at 7:20 in the morning, which got a bit rowdy on my first day and a few kids were asked to leave the classroom. At the end of the hour Mr. Tuttle looked at me with some hesitation and asked, "So... what did you think?" After having experienced far worse tutoring sessions, I could reply, "About like I expected." Tutoring also helped me get back in the frame of mind of a high school student since I'm 29 (an old fart by their standards), and remember the emotional and academic challenges they face. However, by far the most important thing I learned from tutoring was how to "sit on a student". "Sitting on a student" was our phase for sitting with a student and calmly encouraging them to do their work. The first step sometimes is the hardest: approaching the student from the right angle. Usually, instead of addressing the bad behavior of a disruptive or talkative student, I've found it helps to just ask them how their homework is coming. There's also a large percentage of students who will not ask for my help, even though they really need it. I just have to gently force my way in there. The student usually tries multiple ways to get rid of me. They says things like, "I'll finish it when I get home", "I already finished all of my homework", or "I don't need any help." For the latter two excuses, it is simple enough to ask them, "Can I take a look at your homework?" Almost invariably, they either say no because they were lying to me about being done, or they are done, but there are plenty of mistakes I can help them with. The delicate part here is how much to help them. I probably only get this right half the time, because it is hard detecting whether they are too frustrated to continue, versus just needing a little encouragement. (I'm consistently amazed by how quickly they will throw up their hands after 15 seconds of trying to figure out a problem, or they will just start guessing random answers.) After 5 weeks though, I think I'm running into this problem less, since I am getting to know the students, and they are getting to know me. Consistency really is key.

Long Overdue First Post

The purpose of this blog is to chronicle my experiences as a Teaching Fellow (TF) in the Ypsilanti High School Teaching Fellow program.  

I've been a TF in Mr. Tuttle's classroom for 5 weeks now, and I am finally getting around to making my first blog post.  I should give a little background on myself.  I'm a 4th year PhD student in mechanical engineering.  I was a Teacher's Assistant at U of M for two mechanical engineering classes a few years ago and I really enjoyed the experience, so I was looking for a volunteer position that would allow me to continue in the same vein.  The Ypsilanti High School Teaching Fellow program fit the bill.  Last Spring, I  started out by tutoring Ypsi High students after school with the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), before I transitioned into a TF this Fall.

Well, there's plenty more to say about the past few weeks, but I need to sign off, so it'll have to wait.