This week I took over the classroom. Seating charts and the new format came with mixed classroom management results; one class is doing better at keeping attention, but in the other some students have begun disengaging more than ever. I didn't realize to what extent until an activity I had considered to be setting them up for inevitable success failed.
We did primary documents for a few days, and actually studying them seemed to go really well. Students at different language levels were helping each other, kids were mostly on task, reporting out went well too. But, the guided note sheets, which I was proud of creating, thinking it would make everything more accessible, and which I based the quiz on, seem to not have been completed to satisfaction. No worries, I thought, I'll go over it entirely in class. Quiz was the next day.
Either my assessment was bad, or they just didn't have the knowledge like I thought they did. Friday afternoon grading was depressing, and it took some doing to get past it and start thinking about what to do next. So next week will begin with a reteaching, and an alternative assessment. And we'll go onward and upward from there.
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1 comment:
Rich, indeed it is disheartening.
The right reply was, as you did, reteach...thus an assumption is exploded by input, an assumption that teaching and learning are an equation...I too made the same mistake. Lesson learned and applied by you! That's why I'm a big supporter of ongoing formative assessment...feedback to both you and student. good that you turned a failing summative into a useful formative this way!
Gery
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