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Thoughts on the recent classroom...


I remember well my first days of teaching, and the trepidation about walking into a class of students and wondering how I was going to manage. One of the first places I taught was a rural school in Ireland and the kids there were a real challenge. There was no animosity or badness to them, but they just could not understand why they had to be in school when most of them just wanted to be working on the farm. They were charismatic and smart, but a real challenge due to their motivation being elsewhere.

I suppose there are parallels to what I am seeing today too. I have just finished grading 68 freshman bio semester exams, and the polite way of putting it is they were excrement! I have spent time this year more than others on study skills and mindset. An early Sept exercise we did was for the kids to get into groups and speak about their hopes for the year and to discuss what would be a “win” for them. They also discussed how they would go about it! The sheets are still taped to the wall at the back of the room and I reference them often. I have modelled and challenged students to reflect on their study on a very regular basis, and to make sure they have learned something when they are finished. “You have to test yourself fella’s!” I intone. “Work smart, not hard” I chant. Needless to say it did not work. They were embarrassingly ill prepared! And as I preached on high that while a teacher is never completely without reproach, I can hand on heart say I tried very hard to prepare them with information, the tools, the mindset, and the resources to succeed. They did not live up to their side of the supposed bargain.

I have been thinking about how better to tackle this. I think I will try to change how I approach homework. I think I should have work which is higher order and grade it. Then the students will have time to work in small groups to rework the task in order to reflect on potential shortcomings and hand up reviewed, hopefully improved work. I would hope that after some time the students would learn how to create satisfactory work at the first attempt and be better for it. Grades would also show the students growth, and steer students towards the type of critical thought universities and businesses are crying out for.

Lofty goals indeed.

Thanks

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