I continued today with the same activity as yesterday, considering our school is on an A/B schedule. In order to alleviate some of the logistical issues I faced yesterday, I planned the groups beforehand by putting each students into a group instead of randomly choosing. This worked in a couple of periods, but due to a whole bunch of absences and a bus video we had to watch, two periods we were unable to complete the activity. Also, it seems that group work is harder and harder to pull off when there are more students. In addition to the management issues involved in making 6 person groups work, the simple lack of space in my class makes it rather difficult to maneuver. Perhaps in the future, I should have the desks set up in groups before the kids come into class.
Also, I’m finding that the biggest trouble I have when planning a lesson is the ultimate product I’d like the students to produce. Most days, I have a vague and nebulous concept of some thing I’d like to be done. Obviously this lack of foresight on my part causes a certain measure of confusion on the students’ part. When the students have a goal to accomplish, they tend to go for it, as opposed to just learning for the sake of learning. To have a product in mind would also make the group have something more concrete to focus on. Yesterday I mentioned guiding questions. These could have been used as part of the final assessment which would be something like a worksheet that the students needed to fill out.
Several of my students have also been quite interesting to deal with. One student continuously skips class, and hasn’t turned in a homework assignment the entire semester. When given a slip asking why a project wasn’t completed, this student circled “I choose not to do projects in this class.” In speaking with this student’s parents, my Cooperating Teacher indicated an unwillingness on their part to either acknowledge that there was a problem nor do anything about it. This is really quite unfortunate because this particular student is quite bright, but just refuses to work.
That’s enough for today.
Posted by flank6a 