The Busiest Week so Far!

The week started off with a bang - I gave students my first ever assigned tests on Monday.  I was pretty nervous to see how they'd do, which I figured would reflect on how well I'd taught.  I know that there are so many other factors that this would be an invalid assertion, but it's tough to avoid thinking that way.

So, I spent a lot of my downtime throughout the week slowly hacking away at grading their tests, which was quite a novel experience.  I've heard quite a few strategies for grading tests, but I opted to just grade a page at a time in an attempt to maximize consistency.  I hit a snag on page 2 when I noticed that everyone was struggling with one question.  It was a pretty difficult question, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt and made the question extra credit, so as to not factor into the total number of points possible.  Interestingly, nobody got the question correct.  The right call I'd say, and an indication to do a bit of reteaching.  More on this later.

We had a bit of a wild week, thanks to a professional development day on Wednesday, my absence from class on Tuesday for seminar, and our CT being out to take care of a sick kid on Thursday.

On Thursday, we continued learning about writing rules, and then equations, for simple linear relationships between two variables.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the students behave as well as they did, considering the presence of a substitute teacher in the room, but there seemed to be mass confusion on the topic discussed.  We didn't get through much after a long list of housekeeping things, so I decided to rethink and stretch the lesson for another day.

That night, I created handouts for the students which could be used a reference to look back on writing rules and equations, as well as provide an opportunity to practice writing their own rules.  Having finished grading their tests as well, I created a re-test of sorts, which I dubbed the Test 2 Recovery, since I intended it to be completed at home and not in class.

Friday went better than Thursday, but was still not great.  One student had one of those educational baby dolls that liked to cry at random intervals.  Fun!  Ignoring this the best we could, I let the class try to come up with their own rules and equations on the worksheet I gave them.  They were all over writing equations, but the rules (with words) were tough for them - I'm thinking it's more of a writing issue than an understanding issue.  But we must push on... we are going to be writing more complex equations this coming week.

I concluded the day on Friday by giving them their tests back.  We spent a bit of time reviewing the questions that they most struggled with, but they were being a bit rowdy.  I used the line, "I would love to continue going over this as soon as the volume level gets back under control. I'm reviewing this stuff for you all - I already know it.  I just assumed you'd want to know how to do this for the Test 2 Recovery which I'll be giving you to do over the weekend."

That seemed to work.  And now I just need to see how many people actually turn them in, and I get to have fun grading stuff again.  Interesting side note - I was pleasantly surprised to see one of the quiet, blend-in kids get a 96% for the class high.  Go him.

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Other than that, this past week/end has been obnoxiously busy.  I haven't left my house since Friday, and I've been writing at my computer for most of it.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!