So apparently I don't blog enough. Perhaps it's because I'm too busy. Even more, it's because there's so much to say and no clue how to phrase it.  Sam Patterson convinced me to share what I'm doing in my Engineering, Robotics, and Design elective class, so here it is.

My job is incredibly awesome.  I teach two classes of algebra 1 to a motivated group of kids, then get a conglomerate of IEP, Special Ed, ADD, GATE, 7th, 8th, and everywhere in between kind of kids in my engineering class.  All in all, this class was set up for complete failure.  The class was designed to enhance the algebra 1 curriculum and support kids who were craving the Project-Based Learning that every student should be exposed to on a regular basis.

With the slew of varied levels in each of the two engineering classes, you'd think that there would be a ton of problems.  However, it's the most intense 51 minutes of each kid's day.  In this class, we are going full steam ahead (pun intended, I guess).  Choo Choo.

First off, learning is not learning unless kids are actually retaining information that they find relevant to their own lives.  Being an algebra teacher around this time of year is brutal in the sense of real life applications and relevance for a student's everyday life.  Talking about rational expressions, the quadratic formula, and exponent rules are difficult to tie in to the average 14 year-old's list of "topics that I care about... at all"