progress

New topic came up yesterday in the Instructional Design working group (MCPS 21st Century Initiative). A woman who is a financial adviser has been discussing financial literacy, and she brought up our financial woes so it occurred to me that "financial disaster" would be a valid topic as another threat facing Missoula. Not an Earth force, per se, but a good topic for a guest speaker and good cross-curricular content.
Wrapped up all group sharing today. My impression is overall somewhat weak on facts relevant to Missoula, but this will allow good follow-up research. Also today we began group labs using various guided and structured inquiries from my files. The "preparedness" groups are doing a plate boundary activity.
Absenteeism is a definite issue for PBL. There are habitual offenders who need to be evaluated based on actual participation, and basketball players missing almost every Thursday 6th block period (which just pisses me off; what the hell are early outs supposed to cut down on???!!!). But hell, nobody cares about A's and B's, just F's. The "excused from task" in Zangle is so handy, ay? I should excuse all missing assignments from now on and see if anyone notices.