Week 9 - Saturn and Valence electrons

These last few weeks I haven't been presenting anything. I have been focusing on helping the students, one on one. They seem to benefit from me walking around and checking up on them while they work on something. Whether they say it or not, it appears that they like someone caring about their work. Students are more willing to show me their work and want to know if they are doing it correctly.

For instance, the students had a homework assignment due today but were already given homework for the next day. A lot of the students were asking questions and working really hard to finish the assignment (the one due the next day)in class. I asked a certain student if they had turned in their homework. The student did not remember there was homework due and sure enough when he pulled it out there wasn't even a name on the paper. I told him there was 15 min left in class and he should work on it and I figured he could get most of it done to get partial credit. He told me he wanted to work on the other assignment because it was easier. I smiled at him and explained how easy the other assignment was if he took a moment to look at it. Sure enough he started working on it and finished most of it and turned it in when the bell rang. He just needed someone to give him a little nudge and some encouragement.

This week I cam in on Wednesday because I have a presentation on my research this Friday. In astronomy they filled out another profile, this one was on Saturn. In chemistry they learned about valence electrons. The students seem to be picking this stuff up pretty well.