Note that I’m writing this one week late.
This week we focused on getting used to GlowScript by doing all of the computational activities in chapter 1 of the textbook. Most everyone did fine. One student in particular is having significant difficulty because he is not a native English speaker. He tells me he wants to stay in the course though, and I certainly encouraged him to do so for as long as he feels comfortable.
Students continued to work their way through the chapter 1 WebAssign problem sets. It’s slow going though, because they, like my astronomy students, have been conditioned to do something for a teacher’s mark and not for the benefit of learning it as a foundation for future things. I wish there were a less painful way of undoing that conditioning. As usual, students are waiting till the weekends to work on the WebAssign sets and that’s generating a lot of frustration. On the other had, it also causes the to see what they don’t yet understand that in that respect, it’s meeting my goals.
Although nothing really exciting happened this week feedback, questions, and constructive criticism are welcome.