Who's In Charge?

Day Two for creating a staircase to the top of the building.
All I can say is....
WHAT WAS I THINKING???!!!!

It seems absolutely overwhelming now that we have taken the leap.
At times I feel like I'm in quicksand and it's slowly pulling me so I can't get out!
I can't imagine how the students are feeling!
I know it's a control issue for me.
I want the classroom to be in control at all times.
But when there are so many questions at one time,
I feel the quicksand tightening it's grip and pulling me under!

But when I take a step back
I can see that I have created the exact environment I was supposed to.
1.  Students are engaged...
Or almost all of them.
Something to work on...how to keep everyone going when frustration sets in?

2.  Students are asking questions.
And lots of them!
Their are definitely "minds-on".

3.  I am asking questions right back.
To keep them thinking.

4.  Students are seeing connections that I hadn't dreamed they would see.

For example, one group, after measuring stairs in the building brought this problem to me.
They had measured the hand rail of the steps (n)
Then they had measured the heights of the lowest end (x) and the highest end (m)
They were ready to find the slope.
I knew they were missing a piece as I tried to contain my excitement of them transferring their knowledge to a new situation that would ultimately get them to the solution.
I had drawn what they were describing to me on the board so they could see the whole picture.
They quickly figured out they needed to find the horizontal length between each end.
They ran back to get the measurement.
When they came back, we were now ready to discuss slope.

So while I know there will always be quicksand to quickly consume us if we let it,
We need to keep focused on those bright spots of learning.
We may have to trudge through muck,
And we may get tired,
But in the end, I hope it's all worth it!
Overall, I was impressed with the level of effort the students gave today.

To address my "control" issue,
I had to help organize things a bit at the beginning.
We talked about showing all of our work and labeling everything we computed.
This way, our information would be easy to find when we needed it.

I also thought introducing Google Sketchup might be a way to produce a blueprint.
Students learned the in's and out's of the program through tutorials that I had included in our LiveBider textbook.
Of course, students learn just as much by playing around and experimenting!