This week I was able to take on two classes full time to prepare for my full time teaching next week. It went really well. I taught fourth and fifth periods and they are probably my favorite in the day ( I know, no favorites, but I like the classes as a whole so that is ok, right? (= ) Fourth period is a really small class and they are really quiet. It can actually be disconcerting at first but they can be prompted to talk. It is strange that all the shy students were put in fourth and apparently all the not-shy ones are in seventh. Fifth period is a very spunky class and many students will answer questions. They are not perfect because they like to be chatty, but I like a good challenge.
I didn't do a lot of instruction because it was the last week for short stories and we also finished up parts of speech. So, I gave lots of tests (I think Mrs. DeVault wants me to be the bad guy or something, lol). They really didn't do well on most of the assignments this week and we reviewed a lot with them. We played a game on Thursday where we read questions from the actual test and many students still failed. It was pretty crazy to grade the tests and see that they missed things that we talked about so many times and we also gave them the exact answers for. Mrs. DeVault and I feel that the students need to work on their study skills. We are trying to come up with some ways that we can teach them in class. It is hard because we are already pressed for time to get in all the things we want to teach. Study skills should be something they have already learned by having tests and assignments prior to high school. We will come up with something though, I am sure.
Busy Bees
4 comments:
Can you weave study skills instruction into content learning so you can do two things at once? I'm thinking students could learn some note-taking strategies as you give them an overview for a lesson topic, for example. You could think aloud on the Smart Board (or overhead, whichever you have) about how you would take notes on the information you're giving. It might feel a little schizophrenic as you teach it, but a lot of students have never been shown any strategies-- it's just assumed that they'll pick them up.
Yeah but we don't even test them on anything they didn't take notes on with us in class. We give handouts where they fill in the definitions or blanks in the notes and the tests are taken straight from there. So either they are struggling with trying to memorize the entire handout or they have no motivation to look at it at all. I think sometimes all the information we give them can be overwhelming but with the last test we went through and highlighted all the important concepts and they still failed. They are just not studying at all...what do we do to motivate them since the fear of failing does not seem like enough. I know that I want them to feel like they can make up the grades they have lost but sometimes that is hard for them to see when they have an F in the class. It will be a lot of work to make it up but they have to put some effort into class. We give grades on simple things that we do in class and some students don't even do that without strong prompting. It is getting ridiculous.
You may give the students a few minutes of class to individually go to a computer and look at their grade on EdLine; sometimes actually seeing the number and knowing we are more than half way through the grading period encourages them.
I am happy to see that you are doing so well with your class instruction. I agree with the others and their sugggestions on improving grades. Sometimes it helps to have students have a graded test signed and brought back to school or have them print an Edline report from home and have it signed and brought back to school. You could even offer 5 bonus points to the test if the report is brought back or simply make it a grade by itself.
Post a Comment