my students are learning how to deal with being "stuck" today. what seemed like a fairly simple exercise has opened my eyes to how much i assist them and i wonder if i'm over-doing it (the assisting).
we are taking a unit test and since its mid-year, I've changed my testing policy (procedure?) to accommodate preparation for the standardized tests. Up until now, I've awarded 1/2 credit back for tests that we go over in class together. I've let them use journals for reference, but no notes. now that it's a new semester and we are closer to the BIG tests, I'm thinking I will not let them use journals anymore and they need to do the test on their own. I can read the questions out to them (for those that require it) and then I will award only 1/4 points back on tests when we go over them together. The Freshmen seemed to pick up on this quite well and even passed their recent test. My Sophomores are kind of freaking out that I'm leaving them to solve things on their own. Makes me feel like I baby them too much.
I explained the reason for my procedure/policy is due to the fact that they need to get used to not being able to ask me for help, it helps them feel the stress of a test and they can start really focusing on getting themselves unstuck.
Someone out there is thinking, "why didnt you just start this sooner?" this is a good thought. i really dont know why except that i wanted to give them a fighting chance to start off with. quite honestly, I'd like to see what other teachers do to prepare their students for standardized tests (emotionally, etc.) Frankly, I would like to just see how other people teach. Its been a while since I sat in and observed some one else and it would be nice to see what they did. Maybe I could learn something new or I could see that I was doing something horrible.
I hope that we can get through this together and whomever is reading this, if you have any good suggestions for testing strategies, I'd be interested in hearing those.
On another note and in a different class, our printer wasn't working as it should so we got through a part of today's work and then we went and shot hoops. We figured we could make a correlation-style something from the stuff we did but it ended up in us seeing what kind of shots we could make. Bit of healthy competition. Tomorrow we will get back to business. word.
speakin gof business, I need to work on a book study since I said I'd be done this week. Off I go. Lates.
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