Interesting, I had minimal difficulty with my students today. With the trends that have been going on for me, I would have to call this a success!
Questions for reflection:
What did I want the students to do?
What worked?
What didn't work?
Fifteen minute silent reading is starting to get incorporated into our lessons. It's a new plan, and I have to try to cover all the other new policies, so I work on this last. At the last minute, I am able to come across some scientific american articles that might be worth reading, (improving male chromosomes, increasing intelligence) I mean come on! Why would they not want to know how to become smarter? I totally believe it if my students brains shut down when they come across very low frequency, high level academic words. They do not know what it is, so now they don't care. I am almost the same way! Except I already have it in my system to find out what it means and/or find meaning for it in the text. They need more options if they get stuck so quick.
Anyways, the next part of the day is something new I started. I got the idea from Harvard Physics Professor Eric Mazur. He GIVES his students Cornell notes on the lesson he would be teaching, and the students would revise his notes to their understanding.
We are also suppose to implement student centered learning in the classroom which is fine by me. My only trouble is finding the guiding moments with the independent moments for the students. The new plan with this Mazur strategy is to write questions that build up to the students levels of reading and learning. They cannot directly find the answer on the slide of information of notes that I provided to them. They need to understand the point I am getting across from the notes, and then answer the question as a follow up to understanding.
These questions start off simple with identifying the little things I would hope they would know by now, and then have them do some calculations in the end as well as graphic interpretation. To me, this is HUGE for them.
So how did it go? Well leaving it to them does not mean they will do it. Some students get quickly frustrated when I try to re-explain something. I have been told to bring it down to their level. It's like asking me to water down tonic. I can only go so low because I do not want to say "the top thing with the bottom thing." I will not sink that low. They need to expand their vocab, which is starting to turn out to be my new job.
Depending on who is in the class will make or break the assignment. Wilbur and Susie come to every class period but still fail, they completely block any chance of passing when they do not submit themselves to the assignment and choose to do other off task adventures. That affects the other students in the class as well if they get caught under their cyclone.
Ive called home, i've made action plans, nothing. Like I said though, I had a better day because it ends on a better note.
My last class did everything I needed them to do, and they were able to do it without much complaining. I had to have a few encounters with some students but once that was taken care of, everything else fell into place. They were able to focus on the material, ask me questions about the questions I wrote, and made my job feel a little easier.
I am not saying what didn't work was to leave it completely up to the students to get the work done, I like to help them, especially when they struggle in math and science. It's getting them to get to the work is the issue. I try to give them questions they can answer that lead to the overall understanding of the topic. If they do not try, they will not learn anything.
