Winter Solstice Post: A Favorite Memory of 2020

 Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Yule Blog Prompt #3: A Favorite Memory of 2020

3. Conclusion

Introduction

Today is December 21st, the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. In astronomy, tonight marks the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn -- the first time in centuries that these two planets passed so close to each other as seen from our planet:

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/the-great-conjunction-of-jupiter-and-saturn

While Jupiter passes Saturn once every 20 years, an especially close conjunction occurs only about once every 400 years. And the fact that this century's conjunction occurs so close to Christmas evokes the theory that the "Star of Bethlehem," seen around the birth of Jesus approximately 400 * 5 years ago.

The following link discusses the frequency of the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction as well as the theory that the conjunction of 7 BC was the Star of Bethlehem:

https://www.space.com/great-conjunction-jupiter-saturn-2020-fun-facts

In any case, today is an astronomically significant day, and so I acknowledge it here on the blog. In fact, I went out to see Christmas lights right around the time of the conjunction. I spotted the two planets in the southwest as well as Mars almost directly overhead.

Meanwhile, it's time to continue the Yule Blog Challenge. And since today is the third day of winter break, let's proceed with the third prompt.

 Yule Blog Prompt #3: A Favorite Memory of 2020

One of my favorite memories of 2020 was just two weeks ago, on my birthday, December 7th. I often like to play a special game with my students, and since this game starts with the instruction "Guess my age," sometimes I try to play the game on my birthday.

Here's a link to where I explain a (pre-pandemic) version of this game:

http://commoncoregeometry.blogspot.com/2014/10/section-5-3-conjectures-day-49.html

Two weeks ago, my birthday fell on Monday, when all students in all periods meet online. Moreover, there were several things going on that day. First, some of these online Mondays are designated as minimum days, including my birthday -- all classes met for only 30 minutes that day. And second, the previous week was spent taking the district Benchmark Tests. In theory, I taught a regular lesson on those days after the tests were done -- in reality, some period/cohorts got more or less of the lesson that day. Thus different classes were more prepared to take the December 7th quiz than others.

So here's how I ended up playing "Who Am I?" that day. I began by dividing the students (who were all online that day) into just two groups. It would have been convenient to let the two hybrid cohorts be the two groups, as the classes are already naturally divided this way. But I feared that one cohort would have been at a disadvantage (if I'd failed to teach the lesson properly the previous week). And so I divided the classes by first name (A-L and M-Z) -- this matches the order that the names appear on Google Meet, so this is convenient. The students enter all their responses into the Google Meet chat so that I can easily tell who responded to each question first.

The first question was "Guess my age" as usual. One seventh grade girl guessed my age exactly as I then revealed that it was my 40th birthday. My second question was "Guess my height" instead of weight, since it's been some time since I stepped on a scale (and besides, since they were online, they couldn't just look at me to see how tall I am).

With the eighth grade classes, this game went fairly smoothly. The lesson was on solving simple equations with squares and cubes (such as x^2 = 25). All questions were asked as a race -- the first correct response earns a point for that team. At first I told the students to name a solution (5), and then I explained how there's a second solution. Then I continued to ask them to solve more equations, with only the complete solution (+5 and -5) being worth a point for the team.

The only notes I had the students take was to keep track of all types of solutions:

x^2 = 64 (solutions are +8 and -8)

x^2 = -64 (no solution)

x^3 = 64 (only solution is +4)

x^3 = -64 (only solution is -4)

The entire game took 15 minutes or so. Then I had the students take the online quiz for the remaining fifteen minutes. Because the quiz was on the previous topic (solving multi-step equations) and the students had differing levels of preparation during Benchmarks, many students struggled on this quiz.

Unfortunately, this game doesn't go as smoothly in seventh grade. Both the lesson and the quiz were also on equations -- two-step equations in this case. These equations are difficult to solve, especially for new learners trying them in a race situation.

Nevertheless, I consider this to be my best lesson of the year for Math 8. On a minimum day when I had only 15 minutes to teach the lesson, "Who Am I?" was the best way to cover the material quickly. Some of my eighth graders who normally don't participate -- especially on online days -- were motivated to score a point for their team. And the students did earn prizes -- a small package of Skittles or Starburst, which they received the next time their class met in person that week.

Conclusion

Usually, when I participate in a blogging challenge, I like to read and acknowledge the blogs of my fellow participants. And I will, although not in today's post. As I wrote earlier, I spend much of today looking for planets and decorated houses, not other blogs. I do plan on checking out the other blogs and referring to them in my next post.