October 12th

            On this day, we decided that it was best to teach the students about counting lines on a grid and using them to create symmetrical objects before having them use the bead loom software. One RPI student was absent so the other brought in two of her friends to help out.

            The other 3 were charging and preparing the school laptops for the bead loom so in the meantime, I started by drawing a grid on the board and using extra thick lines to mark out the axes of symmetry. I then put a magnet on a point and asked the class to find the symmetrical point over the vertical axis. One of the students who were in the program already put the other magnet in the correct spot. I then explained how to find the answer by counting out the lines and explaining that the number of lines has to be the same on both sides of the axis. Unfortunately, not many of the kids were paying attention and I had to call out to them several times. I called up several of the kids who did not seem to understand and asked them to reflect several other magnets that I put up. One girl was too shy to go up in front of the class. Finally, I called a few more and asked them to reflect a point over the origin. All except one were able to do it after some explanation. I went over several different problems with the last kid but we had to move on to the bead loom software before he could understand it.

            Before starting the bead loom, we had the group read the cultural background of the bead loom out loud. If one kid starts to reads out loud, he/she would eventually lower his/her voice out after making a few mistakes with big words or out of shyness. The same girl who wouldn’t get up to solve the symmetry problem was also too shy to read out loud. We solved this by having the entire class read out loud together. We had to make sure that students weren’t going on other websites while working. I worked with the 3 students who seemed to have the most trouble with the software. I would have them first choose an easy design and then show them how to change color and plot points. I plotted the first few for them so that they know where they should begin and then I let them choose for themselves. I taught them to hold the mouse over a point that they want to use, look at the x and y values that show up at the top of the screen, and enter them in the text boxes. After a few tries, they understood it.