1.2. Tuesdays: Collaboration¶
Once you have completed your Exposure activity, it’s time to talk! About what you might ask? I won’t stop you from talking about the latest TikTok dance craze or your cousin’s quinceañera, but I will make sure you also talk about literally everything that comes to mind about the week’s Exposure activity. That means you should talk about the things you understood and the things you still don’t get (cough you should talk about your answers to the CFU questions cough).
Who are you talking to? At the beginning of the year, I will assign you to a group of students to talk to. Consider these students your new best friends because you will be talking every week until you take the AP exam. These groups won’t change unless something super dramatic happens (in that case, you should definitely let me know). I can’t guarentee you will know everyone in your group, but I can promise that if you keep an open mind and communicate how you’re feeling, you might leave this class with a few new friends.
I totally understand that it can be hard to schedule Zoom meetings that work for everyone; I also understand that it’s HELLA awkward to talk on the phone these days (Who are you? Some boomer?). To avoid both of these situations, we will be communicating using an app called Piazza. Piazza is infamous in computer science circles because it is used by universities across the nation; if you take a CS class in college, you will most likely need to use Piazza.
So why are we using it? Well, Piazza lets you talk with a group of friends online. It feels a lot like texting, except I will be able to see everything that is said/sent. I won’t participate in your conversations but I will read through your texts to make sure you actually spoke (and to make sure that everything stays PG-13).
At the end of your group chat, you should resubmit your CFU. If your answers change, great! That just means you’re beginning to think about a concept differently (cough you are learning cough). If your answers don’t change, also great! In this case, you are correctly thinking about a concept OR you are really good at convincing your group members you’re right; both skills can take you far in this world. However, because I’m your CS teacher, I value the former a little more than the latter, and because I do, I will be grading your responses on semi-correctness. Huh? This just means I will give you a big shiny A+ if you get like one or two of the questions right. In other words, you don’t have to be perfect yet because learning is a process that takes time. I want you to value that idea and the only way it’s going to happen is if I change how I grade.
TL;DR: Talk to your Discord group about the week’s CFU. Then, resubmit your CFU even if your answers don’t change because I will be checking to see if like one or two of your responses are right.