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Good times in Engineering
Aug. 16th, 2017 09:12 pmSo I teach 2 different classes. Geometry (and they know not to take this from me because it is my favorite math forever even though I hated it in high school), and Introduction to Engineering and Design. Now I have absolutely zip engineering background (was a banker for a quarter century before I went into teaching) and when they asked me to teach this class I was like WHAA? And they said you are good with kids and you know math so we are good to go.
So I got sent to a summer two week boot camp at Cal Poly Pomona. And the class was an interesting mix. Some of us were teachers, some were going to be. I was one of 3 females in the class of 20-some, just sayin'. And definitely the oldest in the room. My partner was a really nice guy who had been a technical artist for a cabinet company, but hadn't taught yet. We had complementary skills, shall we say.
So we had these occasional Challenges, one of which was to make the longest bridge we could out of a single piece of computer paper. We were given a pair of blocks. The bridge had to stretch from one block to the other, and couldn't touch the desk. You could not use anything other than the paper, so no tape, glue, staples, etc.
Readers, my partner and I RULED. We got 48 inches. Never bet against a Geometry teacher.
So today, I gave my 2 Engineering classes the same challenge, showed them how long I had gotten, and dared them to do better. Winning team got a bag of M-and-Ms, and 100 points extra credit. One of the classes had a team that matched my record, in a totally different way. These kids rock so hard.
So I got sent to a summer two week boot camp at Cal Poly Pomona. And the class was an interesting mix. Some of us were teachers, some were going to be. I was one of 3 females in the class of 20-some, just sayin'. And definitely the oldest in the room. My partner was a really nice guy who had been a technical artist for a cabinet company, but hadn't taught yet. We had complementary skills, shall we say.
So we had these occasional Challenges, one of which was to make the longest bridge we could out of a single piece of computer paper. We were given a pair of blocks. The bridge had to stretch from one block to the other, and couldn't touch the desk. You could not use anything other than the paper, so no tape, glue, staples, etc.
Readers, my partner and I RULED. We got 48 inches. Never bet against a Geometry teacher.
So today, I gave my 2 Engineering classes the same challenge, showed them how long I had gotten, and dared them to do better. Winning team got a bag of M-and-Ms, and 100 points extra credit. One of the classes had a team that matched my record, in a totally different way. These kids rock so hard.
