How to make an Ethernet Cable?

On October 4, I showed my students how to make an Ethernet cable.  First, I divided them in groups of four and handed one wire to each group after cutting one inch of the plastic sheath from both ends of the cut wire. I projected the wire color order for straight through configuration on a screen and explained them how to do it. Once they inserted the wires in to the RJ45 crimpable connector, I gave them the RJ-45 crimp tool to crimp the connector. We then tested each cable by connecting it to a computer. At the end of the class we did a small math game to determine which student in each group gets the Ethernet cable they made.

Below is a link that explains how to make an Ethernet cable.

http://www.groundcontrol.com/galileo/ch5-ethernet.htm

How small is nano?

After giving a small self introduction to the students about my research in my first class, I showed them a YouTube video in my second class. The video is about “how small is nano”. Before I showed them the video, I asked them what they think about nano. I got different responses. Some said nano is very small like an atom; some said it is a square-shaped object and showed me the size of an ipod nano with their fingers. Then I showed them the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQzFpP4FSN4&NR=1

After showing them the video I asked them if a 1nm in diameter nano particle is scaled up to the size of a soccer ball, then how big would the soccer ball be on this scale. The soccer ball will roughly be of the size of the planet Neptune.  Then I showed them the picture of the solar system to show them the size of Neptune with respect to the size of earth.

Workshop Day 1

On the first day of the GK-12 workshop we focused on an inquiry based teaching in a classroom. We started the workshop with a ‘Do now’ as a warm up, where we wrote down and discussed the characters of 9^th and 10^th grade students in a class room. Then we started our discussion about inquiry based teaching. This is an effective way of teaching by asking questions rather than a lecture where we use the PowerPoint slides. It involves the active participation of students. When a student ask you a question, instead of answering it directly we can help them in reaching the answer by asking different questions. We then watched a video demonstrating an example of an inquiry based classroom. After that we spend some time to learn about the student’s critical thinking skills through the black box example. Then we discussed about Bloom’s taxonomy and planning.