Yeah -- I think "useful for what?" is an important question, and the answer will change w/ development. I focus on the conceptual a lot because I think it will be a better guide in the future when the teacher isn't there and the problems are real and unstructured, about what calculations to do.

I like that example for highlighting a distinction between conceptual and "mechanical"(?) understanding. There's a student who would plug those coordinates into the distance formula, say that the diagonal is bigger, and then get mad if I tried to say there was a deeper idea to get.

I appreciate some of the rest of this thread, but strongly disagree with this. Making students feel stupid doesn't make them rise to the occasion. It's possible to challenge them to be confident _and_ competent.

I use them. I insist on putting arrowheads on both ends of every line to combat that, and find that they help in understanding when to make a 2nd (or more) fbd to really understand a system and bookkeeping in accounting for every interaction. Also helpful in talking about potential energy

#teach180 day 16. Just wrapped Back to School Night, felt good talking to parents about the physics class and the AI & Ethics class. Lots of nodding heads about the AI class. And I succeeded in exactly filling the 10 minutes.

#teach180 day15 Wrapped up the medical diagnosis discussion last class (itmeson.github.io/ai-explainer...) and introduced false positive/false negative distinction. Today started the brief programming unit with python turtle graphics (used pythonsandbox.com/turtle to simplify install) Always so fun!

#teach180 day11 Only had the AI class today. Played with the TicTacToe demo (itmeson.github.io/tictac-demo/) and discussed how a simple computer program can use shifting probabilities to "learn" and why it doesn't necessarily learn the correct lessons.

As a teacher, how can I create the perfect conditions? Remove the barriers/antagonists? Provide friendly pace setters? Convince them they can do more than they think they can? Show them that it's necessary to do more?

It's a lot to think about.

Bannister and Landy both worked alone at first, but found mentors and role models who showed them that it was both possible to do more than they thought they could, and that it was *necessary* to do more. Bannister had friendly pacesetters, Landy had an invitation to Finland and perfect conditions.

Santee was ready first in early 1954, and stayed at that level longer, into 1955. But he never had the right race in the right conditions with the right competition. He had rainouts, no friendly pacesetters, and active antagonists who cut his career short and banned him from competition.

There's all kinds of lessons about extreme performance and running, but since I don't think my role is primarily about pushing students to the edge, I gravitate to the story of their relationships with mentors, about needing models of behavior, and the role of luck / removing barriers.

All three went to the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, all three had disappointing performances, and all three went home determined to take their running to the next level. In 1954 Bannister made it first (3:59.4), Landy got there weeks later (3:58.0), and Santee never made it (4:00.5).

But as a counterpoint on that tension: idlewords.com/2010/03/scot... an amazing deep dive into the discovery of Vitamin C and how wrong metaphors for the correct treatment for scurvy in the 18th century lead to *losing* the cure in the 19th. Sometimes the details *do* matter.

#teach180 day 5 (yesterday) More graphing stories and first problem solving practice in physics. Finished AlphaGo doc in AI. Did learning walk through four world language classes -- amazing work from my colleagues in creating a fearless class climate in the first few days.

Yep. Just checked with my students and officemates, none of them have seen this show up yet. Gemini is now available in Google Workspace for Ed accounts, but it's turned off by default unless your workspace admin turns it on, but I don't think this "Homework Help" is connected to that.

#teach180 day 4. Just noticed this chrome tool that shows up only when I'm on a page in our school LMS. What do you wonder about that? #aiethics #aieducation

Day 3. Broke out the vernier sensor carts and had physics SS replicate position - time graphs. Pushed them to be specific about the scales. In AI we introduced train/test/deploy vocab and started watching AlphaGo documentary.

Day 2 almost done. Had more good conversations in the other section of the AI class (we have an odd/even alternating schedule). And got setup to start the other half of my job for the year -- instructional coaching, will do learning walks through most of my open periods next week

Day 1 done! Worked on graphing stories in physics and had a solid opening discussion in the AI class.