Saturday, November 6, 2010

Power to the People...

One of my former students, who is now a senior, came running up to me to tell me about his experience at an interview for an internship for a local architectural firm. He told of how he was asked to attend a meeting with a builder at a job site (on an interview? I know!) and he was asked his opinion about something in the plans.

His reaction: "Mrs. G, my opinion actually MATTERED! It was amazing!"

I'm wondering about that- why do students feel their opinion doesn't matter?

I think I am going to pay attention to see if I can find a student who needs this feeling as well. I'll give them an opportunity to feel like their opinion matters... maybe I'll work with them to create a seating chart or something like that....

Got me thinking, that's all.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Group Matrix... an idea in progress.

Idea:

I sort my students into groups of four, based on how much they need me when they are struggling with a topic. Then I take groups of four and put their names in individual columns. Left most column is the 4 lowest kids that need the most help and the right most column are the kids that can pretty much figure stuff out whether I am there or not. These are their Color groups.

If I want heterogeneous groups, I just use the kids in each row. The groups are a little bigger, but I can easily them up into smaller groups by splitting the columns. If I don't like a group, I can move the column names around and mix it up.

Example:

Red Yellow Blue Green Purple
1 James Nicole Ginny Eamon George
2 Becca Andrew Phil Bridget Sammy
3 Joe Connor Nina Lauren Robin
4 Chris Colin Chrissy Grace Maggie
5 Jack Aiden Mike Rob Will

So let's say in the Yellow Group Ginny and Chrissy are in a fight because of Mike. Well, heterogeneously, they can just switch number groups and stay in their column.


Saturday, September 18, 2010

I know you guys have done this stuff...

For the first time in our school district, the students were assigned a summer review packet in reading and math. Apparently, the parents were not happy about this because a phone call went out to the whole district explaining that it was now no longer due the first day of school, but the 5th day of school.

What does this mean in terms of our community's ability to bully our administration? I know I have had a few parents that are demanding and it takes a lot of patience to logically get them to see the light. But have they bullied me? I don't think so. So why did the administration fold like origami? Maybe they didn't- maybe it just looks like they did. But even if it LOOKS like they did, that doesn't make me happy.

In the case of the summer packets, there was a phone call home and letters sent home in June telling the students and their families that there was work over the summer. The students all signed a paper saying they acknowledged they knew about the summer packet and that it was due on the first day of school as a homework grade.

Do I need to even tell you that more than half of my students in PreCalc and Geometry did not even open it before they walked into school the first day?

I am totally on the fence about work during the summer. I have two kids- my daughter is in 4th grade and my son is in Preschool. My daughter's school district did not have summer work, but there is a little part of me that wish she DID. But, summer is MY time with her to do fun stuff, not worry about deadlines and projects and such.

I did buy her a summer bridge workbook, which she hated. We fought. She won. It remains unfinished on her bookshelf. This should serve as a warning to me. Summer work = trouble. I know I should have been firmer and insisted she do it. But we were potty training my son and were doing construction on the house.

How many of the parents in my district had their own versions of potty training and house construction? Should their kids start the year with a zero for a homework grade because of it?

My daughter, Ginny is now a fourth grader and got a 75% on her first math assessment. I went through her quiz with her and she obviously knew how to do the problems she got wrong, but she, like so many 4th graders, is a bit flaky and flew through her quiz and made stupid mistakes.

I cannot help but wonder if she'd completed the summer workbook, would she have done better? Would she be more careful?

I bet there isn't a retake policy. So she is on probation at home. If she gets another math grade below an 85%, she gets grounded. I dunno if this is "correct" parenting, but it's what I am doing. I am also tempted to email the teacher and let her know what happened on the quiz and ask her that the next time they take a quiz to please not let Gin turn it in the first time, but give it back to her to check it carefully. I do that for many of my students, because sometimes inspiration comes just after the quiz leaves your hand.

My students all completed their summer packets by the fifth day of school. The assessment they took on it was disappointing, even though I spent 5 valuable days of classroom time on reviewing those topics. So was the summer packet helpful? I have 50 out of 100 kids scheduling retakes with me.

I'm not convinced.