Capstone Post #2

When I heard we had to interview people I was confused because all the doctors are very busy so I thought “Who can I interview?”  I asked my mom and she said I could interview some people that she works with. The people that I interviewed were Geoff Rohem and Jonathan Harber.

Mr. Roehm is the Executive Director of Launch a charter Middle School in Queens. He thinks things are going to go back to normal after next year. 

Mr. Harbor is an entrepreneur, which is someone who starts a business. He was CEO and co-founder of Schoolnet but then later sold it to Pearson. He continues to work in the education technology industry. He thinks teachers will work from home and only the students that need a physical place to be can go to school. He also thinks there will be high-quality online schools developed as a result of current events that students and families who are looking for more flexibility may be interested in.

Below are the interview questions I created for each interview.

My questions for Geoff were:

  • How do you think teaching and learning are going during the pandemic so far?
  • What do you think is going well?
  • What do you think is going poorly?
  • What’s the biggest challenge for educating students?
  • How well do you think you were prepared for distance learning?
  • Do you think schools will reopen with students in the building?
  • How will that be different than in the past?
  • Will there be limitations on the number of students allowed?
  • With fewer students in the room, how will that impact teaching/learning?
  • How will distance learning be structured?
  • Will classrooms be structured differently?  (table versus desk)
  • How will that impact teaching/learning?
  • How will less student collaboration impact education? 
  • Will recess be allowed?
  • Will students eat lunch at school and how would it happen?
  • How will decreased socialization opportunities impact learning?
  • Will specials like art and music be taught?

My questions for Jonathan were:

  1. Currently, distance learning for me involves a few zooms a week and a lot of independent assignments.  Do you think that will stay the same next year or change?
  2. What do you think educators have learned over the past few months in terms of distance learning?
  3. What technology trends were happening before COVID and how will that change or accelerate?
  4. How do you think education will be impacted beyond next year?
  5. Do u have any thought about Bill Gates working with NYC to reimagine education
  6. Are there going to be any products or platforms do you think will play a big role in the long term.
  7. Do you think kids will have to go back to school 180 days a year in the future

 

 

 

 

Capstone Post #1

In school we are having the biggest project of the year and I’m really excited. It’s called Capstone and my project is about the impact of COVID 19 on education. My main inquiry question is “How Is COVID-19 Projected To Affect Education?” After we find our main inquiry question we have to come up with 5 sub-questions.

What was helpful when choosing my main inquiry question was that there are so many articles to get information about it because it’s impacting everyone’s life right now and will for some time. Another thing that was helpful was that my mom and teacher helped me with my main inquiry question.    

What was challenging about finding my main inquiry question was I narrowed my topic down to COVID-19 and its impact on education and it was hard to develop a main inquiry question about that. But I got through and I’m completely fine. Honestly, I think coming up with the main inquiry question may be one of the hardest parts about Capstone.

What I learned about myself as a learner is that I like to work at my own pace. On important projects like these, I don’t rush ahead because I want to get all the little details right.

Martin Luther King

On Monday January 20th, one of the most famous speakers has his birthday. Martin Luther King Junior. He is a very famous person  because of his ability to speak. One of his most famous speeches was “I Have A Dream.” We learned  a lot about him. One way we researched him was we made a timeline about his most famous 15 events that happened in his life. I think the most famous event that happened to him was making many people believe that segregation should be ended. 

 

This is the timeline that I made 

 

1944  September 20 King Begins Freshman Year

 

1948  June 8 King receives his bachelor of arts degree in sociology from More house College.

 

1951  September 13 King begins his graduate studies in systematic theology at Boston University.

 

1953  June 18 King and Coretta Scott are married at the Scott home near Marion, Alabama.

 

1955  June 5th King is awarded his doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University.

 

1956  January 30th At 9:15 p.m., while King speaks at a mass meeting, his home is bombed. His wife and daughter are not injured. Later King addresses an angry crowd that gathers outside the house, pleading for nonviolence.

 

1957 February 18 King appears on the cover of Time magazine

 

1958  September 17 King’s first book Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story is published

 

1959 February 3 King embarks on a month-long visit to India where he meets with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and many of Gandhi’s followers.

 

1961  January 31Dexter Scott, King’s third child, is born.

 

1962  July 10  King is arrested at an Albany, Georgia prayer vigil and jailed. After spending two weeks in jail, King is released.

 

1963  March 28 Bernice Albertine, King’s fourth child, is born.

 

1964 January 3 King is named “Man of the Year” by Time Magazine.

 

1964  June King’s book Why We Can’t Wait is published.

 

1968  April 4 King is shot and killed while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

 

If Martin Luther King was never born than there would still be wars over segregation. Blacks and whites would have to go to different restaurants water fountains and so on. This would not be fair because the whites would get a better education. This makes the whites earn more money and have a more successful life. Meanwhile the blacks will be poor and have an unsuccessful life and die quickly.

 

We all need to thank Martin Luther King because without him we would still have segregation. All of his speeches helped America become a better country.

 

Blog Post #5

What stood out about our second rocket launch is it went SO HIGH! Also what stood out is that the nose cone was tilted again. What stood out about the classes launch is that all of the launches went so much higher than the first launch. My job for the 2nd rocket launch was pumper. I didn’t really like this job because it was boring. Personally I think it is the worst job. This time the colominating was fun because I got to clonominate a groups rocket that went really high. I think this launch was a lot higher than the first launch but when we graphed it we only got 3 feet higher on our second launch.

 

Our rocket went 36.5 meters and 121 feet. For our next rocket we are going to change our nose cone to a lot taller. We are going to keep the body, and fins the same because we can only change one thing. We are changing the nose cone because the group that won had a taller nose cone.

 

During the launch we were speaking nicely. We were not screaming and saying “you messed it up”, why did you do that.” Because we spoke respectively nothing got messed up and our rocket went really high. Our goal for the next rocket launch is to get 150 feet or higher. I really liked rocket launch 2.

Blog Post #4

What stood out about our second rocket launch is it went SO HIGH! Also what stood out is that the nose cone was tilted again. What stood out about the classes launch is that all of the launches went so much higher than the first launch. My job for the 2nd rocket launch was pumper. I didn’t really like this job because it was boring. Personally I think it is the worst job. This time the colominating was fun because I got to clonominate a groups rocket that went really high. I think this launch was a lot higher than the first launch but when we graphed it we only got 3 feet higher on our second launch.

 

Our rocket went 36.5 meters and 121 feet. For our next rocket we are going to change our nose cone to a lot taller. We are going to keep the body, and fins the same because we can only change one thing. We are changing the nose cone because the group that won had a taller nose cone.

 

During the launch we were speaking nicely. We were not screaming and saying “you messed it up”, why did you do that.” Because we spoke respectively nothing got messed up and our rocket went really high. Our goal for the next rocket launch is to get 150 feet or higher. I really liked rocket launch 2.

Rocketry Blog Post #3

When we first started discussing what we what would change, we initially wanted to change so many things, for example the body, fins, and the nose cone. But then my teacher said to my group that we could only change one thing. “Ok” I say disappointed. I wanted to change more than one thing. We discussed that we wanted to change the fat and stubby fin to a skinny and tall fin which would weigh less. In my first blog post, I wrote about how important it is to have a low weight for a rocket.

 

When we started building rocket 2, since we already knew what to do from rocket 1 we started off really well. First we took the skinny tube and rolled the paper around it. Then we took the fin template and did a skinny and tall fin. Then we got our nose and made it straight this time. We worked really well together. I was praying that our rocket would win.

 

What went well was building our rocket. Our communication also helped. Communication is really important because if you don’t talk then you can’t make suggestions. We thought everything was perfect this time. The body was perfect, the fins were perfect, and the nose cone was perfect.

 

Similar to the first rocket building, our group also handled the disagreements really well this time because we compromised. This worked because instead of arguing and screaming at each other we compromised and stayed calm. I have high hopes for the next rocket launch.         

Rocketry Blog Post #2

  

What stood out about our launch is that it swerved side to side the whole way up and every other group their rocket went straight up. This happened because our nose cone was completely tilted. I knew this was a problem but my group did not listen to me. My job for the 1st rocket launch was countdown master. I really this job because I love screaming. I was also really nervous because as soon as I said release I was thinking is our rocket going to succeed or fail. As soon as I said release I looked up and saw our rocket and go so high but it was swerving back and forth. I knew it was a problem but I did not care because it went so high. When I klonominated it was a bad experience because I klonominated the group got 5 meters. I hope for launch 2 I klonominate a groups rocket that goes really high.

 

I thought our rocket was one of the best but when we converted it to feet we realized we got 4th and fell short of the winner by 74 feet. I was upset but it made me determined to win the next launch. Because the group that won had skinny and tall fins we decided we wanted to change our fins to that. Originally we had stubby and fat fins. We thought this was a really good idea because if it is taller and skinnier it adds less weight.

 

During the launch we spoke really respectively. We were not screaming at eachother we were not saying bad things about each other. When we were graphing we were surprised it only went 118 feet. We were sad we only got 4th but we knew for the next launch we would get at least 120. Well that is our goal. The graphing was really fun. Overall rocket launch 1 was really fun.