Thoughts about Post over the Last Week
Class,
The following are snippets I found in your posts that caught my attention:
Student Entry: This morning I visited Mr. Borton's second hour class. For the last three school days the kids have been working on correctives or extensions to get the full points needed to pass the unit. Today the corrective test was given. Immediately as class started a boy was being rowdy and Mr. Borton made him go in the hall to talk with him. He had me review for the test and the students were actively involved in this. After the review the test was given to the half or more of the class which was doing correctives. I noticed that most of the extension students were done with their units and most were reading novels or working on some homework for another class. Only a few of them were finishing up their units. After the test we put on a movie and graded the tests. It was disappointing that so many of the students who retook the tests failed again. A few who did well were excited that they had done better, but many of them failed again. Each student was called up to talk with Mr. Borton. He asked each student if they studied before taking the test again and almost all of them said no. Also most of them who failed the test were falling short in completion of their unit or didn't have their folder to show the teacher. Mr. Borton said that he had just talked to most of the parents of these students and that they all said that they would help their students study to pass this test the second time. It makes me wonder how effective correctives are and if it is worth taking all the time required or not to try and help the few students who take the correctives seriously.
Todd: We will attempt to tackle this in class this week. I would like to hear others thoughts about what they would do. I am sure I have said this many times in class, but it keeps coming to mind “You deserve what you tolerate”. This is a situation that has at minimum caught the attention of the clinical experience teacher in the class (it sounds like it has caught the attention of the host teacher also). The point here as I said in class before, this seems like an unsatisfactory situation in the classroom. While I would be excited that students have completed, I am not sure that I could be happy if my best or brightest or fastest students had completed their assignments and were now using science class time to read novels or do homework for other classes. I want science class to be for ENGAGEMENT in science. I have suggested nothing to move this situation from where it is; only pointed out that something might need to change-as I think the clinical student may have been doing also. What would you do if this were happening in your class? How will you keep this from happening in your class? Will you?
Student Entry: I am not as comfortable up in front yet and I try to do that but it doesn't work as well as I would like - yet!.
Todd: Determination emerging? !!!!!!!!
Student Entry: I also tried to practice what I read about questioning in the articles Todd gave me. I think there is something to that, about starting by asking the kids things which they are confident in answering and don't have to worry about getting it wrong. The students participated well I thought.
Todd: I found in trying to arouse discussion and reflection from students that I need to give them a problem that can be wrestled with. One that might have multiple answers or responses defended by multiple rationales. If I want them to arrive at what I have already concluded, this is when I think I should have just told them. What experiences are others having with questioning? One of the indicators in the RTOP is “The metaphor “teacher as listener” was very characteristic of this classroom.”. I want to ask questions that spawn student discussions and then I want to be sure that I am characterized by this indicator. If I ask those questions that lead to the answer I have predetermined (which I do) I often find that I am not the “teacher as a listener”. I am more the teacher waiting for the cue so that I can move students along to the predetermined end I have for them. Not necessarily where I want to be most of the time.
Thanks for sharing this week!
The following are snippets I found in your posts that caught my attention:
Student Entry: This morning I visited Mr. Borton's second hour class. For the last three school days the kids have been working on correctives or extensions to get the full points needed to pass the unit. Today the corrective test was given. Immediately as class started a boy was being rowdy and Mr. Borton made him go in the hall to talk with him. He had me review for the test and the students were actively involved in this. After the review the test was given to the half or more of the class which was doing correctives. I noticed that most of the extension students were done with their units and most were reading novels or working on some homework for another class. Only a few of them were finishing up their units. After the test we put on a movie and graded the tests. It was disappointing that so many of the students who retook the tests failed again. A few who did well were excited that they had done better, but many of them failed again. Each student was called up to talk with Mr. Borton. He asked each student if they studied before taking the test again and almost all of them said no. Also most of them who failed the test were falling short in completion of their unit or didn't have their folder to show the teacher. Mr. Borton said that he had just talked to most of the parents of these students and that they all said that they would help their students study to pass this test the second time. It makes me wonder how effective correctives are and if it is worth taking all the time required or not to try and help the few students who take the correctives seriously.
Todd: We will attempt to tackle this in class this week. I would like to hear others thoughts about what they would do. I am sure I have said this many times in class, but it keeps coming to mind “You deserve what you tolerate”. This is a situation that has at minimum caught the attention of the clinical experience teacher in the class (it sounds like it has caught the attention of the host teacher also). The point here as I said in class before, this seems like an unsatisfactory situation in the classroom. While I would be excited that students have completed, I am not sure that I could be happy if my best or brightest or fastest students had completed their assignments and were now using science class time to read novels or do homework for other classes. I want science class to be for ENGAGEMENT in science. I have suggested nothing to move this situation from where it is; only pointed out that something might need to change-as I think the clinical student may have been doing also. What would you do if this were happening in your class? How will you keep this from happening in your class? Will you?
Student Entry: I am not as comfortable up in front yet and I try to do that but it doesn't work as well as I would like - yet!.
Todd: Determination emerging? !!!!!!!!
Student Entry: I also tried to practice what I read about questioning in the articles Todd gave me. I think there is something to that, about starting by asking the kids things which they are confident in answering and don't have to worry about getting it wrong. The students participated well I thought.
Todd: I found in trying to arouse discussion and reflection from students that I need to give them a problem that can be wrestled with. One that might have multiple answers or responses defended by multiple rationales. If I want them to arrive at what I have already concluded, this is when I think I should have just told them. What experiences are others having with questioning? One of the indicators in the RTOP is “The metaphor “teacher as listener” was very characteristic of this classroom.”. I want to ask questions that spawn student discussions and then I want to be sure that I am characterized by this indicator. If I ask those questions that lead to the answer I have predetermined (which I do) I often find that I am not the “teacher as a listener”. I am more the teacher waiting for the cue so that I can move students along to the predetermined end I have for them. Not necessarily where I want to be most of the time.
Thanks for sharing this week!
posted by Todd | 9:37 AM
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