We're Finished!!!

This YEAR

With tomorrow being reserved for walk-a-thon, today marks the unofficial end of the course, and the end of debates. It's been rewarding for me personally watching all of these students grow over this past year. Hopefully, they can now claim to be more geographically literate and more knowledgeable about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than they were a year ago. They can also say that they know more about conflicts and genocides than most people, not to mention what challenges are facing China as it grapples with issues like economic development and censorship. Another claim they can make is that they can successfully articulate and defend their position on any topic. Learning how to learn is something I hope they have taken away from this course, and I couldn't have asked for a better group of students to teach. Thank you for such a wonderful year!

Team 2 consulting with one another during the break between the cross examinations and rebuttal. Fatima's look of concern was unsubstantiated, they won!

Of course I have to thank all of the partners who helped Ms. Reid and I judge these debates this year. The list is impressive and includes the following individuals:

• Vonya Lewis - Professor, Sinclair Community College
• Dr. Noeleen McIlvenna - Associate Professor, Wright State University
• Dr. Brian Boyd - Associate Professor, Wright State University
• Bill Lautar - Member, Kettering City Council
• Tony Klepacz - Member, Kettering City Council
• Dr. Robert P. Dillaplain - President, Xenia School Board
• Jordan Adams - Engineer - AFRL
• Deb Smyth - School Psychologist, Dayton Regional STEM School
• Jordan Slone - Director of IT, Dayton Regional STEM School
• Robin Fisher - Superintendent/CAO, Dayton Regional STEM School
• Dr. Romena Holbert - Assistant Professor, Wright State University
• Dr. David Wirth - MTSI Defense Contractor
• Suzanne Sumner - Attorney, Taft, Stettinius & Hollister
• Dr. Charlotte Harris - CEHS Dean, Wright State University
• Julie Tollefson - Grad student, Wright State University (International and Comparative Politics Program)
• Emily Miller - Teacher, Franklin High School
• Jim McFarland - Assistant Principal, Franklin High School
• Dr. Scott Peterson - Assistant Professor, Wright State University
• Caleb Mitchener - Social Studies Teacher

The judges were very impressed and wanted me to share this with the students. Dr. Luehrmann in particular wanted me to share her comments: "I can't tell you how impressed I was with the students yesterday: they were prepared, professional, and very interesting!  It was a joy to be there as a judge; please do count me in again next year." This is very high praise and I couldn't be prouder of all of them.

If you have any questions about the final grades your son or daughter has received, please email me at arch.grieve@wright.edu.

 

Next Week

I hope you have a great STEMmersion course! If you want to keep up with the biking STEMmersion's trips (and maybe get a few ideas of places to ride around Dayton), you can follow us on http://stemonwheels.blogspot.com!

Have a great summer and I look forward to seeing you all next year for Economics! My class blog for that course is http://economicsaccordingtogrieve.blogspot.com!

~Mr. Grieve

Week Thirty Seven - The Final Countdown!

This Week

It's been a fun week for me seeing all of the students honing their debate skills and piecing together evidence from throughout the year as they prepare for our debates, which will take place next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We have been practicing all week, which has been a lot of fun. We were even lucky enough to have local attorneys Nick Subashi and Tabitha Justice (who is also a DRSS Board Member) come help students prepare for doing cross examinations. They taught them as if they were "new attorneys," explaining all of the preparation that goes into preparing for a cross examination. It was tremendously helpful and I learned a lot as well!

Practicing for the debates!

On Wednesday I was lucky enough to get to go to Sima with Ms. Chen and her students and stuff myself!

Attorneys Nick Subashi and Tabitha Justice (also a DRSS Board Member) came to Ms. Reid's class to help us prepare for our cross examinations on Wednesday! Thanks so much to both of them!

Practicing constructive speeches and cross examinations during class on Thursday.

I also did bike to work day with Ms. Poppaw, Ms. Schultz, and the Bollingers. Lots of fun!

Next Week

We have an impressive array of judges who will be deciding which team better proves that the 20th century was (or was not) a century of progress. This group will include college professors (and even a dean), school board members, local council members from the City of Kettering, and business partners. It should be a lot of fun!

Next week, of course, will be the end of our academic year (before STEMmersion starts), and I am looking forward to watching the students show off everything they've learned this year in front of our judges. As local attorney Nick Subashi explained to our students this weekend, he still practices a lot before he steps into a court room for a trial. I hope students take this lesson to heart and realize that it's true that "practice makes perfect," and that they spend at least some of their weekend practicing their delivery.

Have a great weekend!

~Mr. Grieve

Update on Chinese Comic Life Project

All of the comics that have been uploaded have been graded and entered into ProgressBook. If you would like to revise, you must follow these special directions (and shortened revision timeline due to the end of the quarter rapidly approaching):

1. View my grade/feedback on Pilot
2. Revise your comic accordingly (fixing everything, not just some of it) 
3. Upload your file back to Pilot
4. Print out a hard copy of your new comic life project 
5. Turn it into your class' turn-in tray no later than 3:30PM on Wednesday, May 13

Thank you,

~Mr. Grieve

Week Thirty Six - Debate Preparation

This Week

We are half way through our debate preparations today with students working on crafting their contentions, finding their evidence, and (for the groups who are really on top of things) tying all of their evidence together with a unifying theme. Students have been given mini-lessons this week on finding evidence, crafting contentions, developing themes, and coming up with reasoning to tie their arguments together. Today I spent the period meeting with students individually to look at their evidence and provide them feedback on how to improve it. They had to fill out a form by this morning at 8:00AM letting me know what their evidence/contentions would be for the debates so I could provide feedback.

Students' Chinese Comic Life projects were also due today, which I will try to finish grading over the weekend. What I've looked at so far looks pretty good!

This is Colleen Fulton's comic life project. She did a great job!

We also had a good time enjoying the beautiful weather this week (while continuing to prepare for the debates):

The weather was too nice to stay inside today, so we went outside!

Upcoming Week

Next week we will be doing the following as we prepare for our final debates:

Monday - I will meet w/students one on one, students will begin practicing constructive speeches w/in their own groups and critiquing one another/refining their arguments

Tuesday - Same as Monday

Wednesday - Class will do a run-through of the whole 1st half of the debates with another like group (progress presents to progress so no potential opponents get an unfair advantage!) and give each other feedback.

Thursday - The class will do run-throughs of the whole debate (cont.) with whole-class critique

Friday - Groups will work on revising based on class feedback after finishing up whole debate run-throughs and preparing for debates, which will start during 1st period on Monday!

I hope you have a restful weekend and come back ready to finish the year strong!

~Mr. Grieve