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Cyber Community Blog
A Home for SLSS and McNair TC's and SA's
So at the start of the semester or at other times when teaching a new topic, there is usually some review of previous knowledge or content that a teacher wants to cover. What are some creative ways of reviewing and re-accessing this information instead of just re-teaching it?
What do you do when something that you’ve said is misconstrued? There may be many people who listen to the same speech but some who take what you’ve said and interpret it in different ways. Having apparently done this recently myself, do I need to take the time to visit everyone personally to discuss their perceptions? Do I send a mass email? Do I just drop it and do nothing because I know what I said and the intention behind it?
Frustrated and waiting…
What do you do when you have planned a lesson on the homework that was assigned the previous day and less than half of your class has completed the homework? Do you apologize to your students and say that you were not clear and do something else for that day? Do you continue with your lesson and only include those who have finished? What to do???
Adrienne,
I’ll have a go at your question. I think you need to ask the students why they didn’t do the HW; was it too difficult? Did they not realize it was due the next day? DO you have an unusual class (for SLSS!) where the majority typically don’t due their HW? In Science and Math, I usually try to find a way to teach my lesson anyway, tweaking it so it will still work without the ‘front-end-loading’ that the homework provides. For you or your ST in English, that may not be possible, but if you can, you might want to flip the order of your lessons on the fly. Maybe you can do one of the subsequent days’ lessons that day, and postpone the one that kids were unprepared for until the next day.
Thanks Lisa–some good suggestions. It is a little hard to do the lesson in English especially if they haven’t read the story. Flipping the lesson to a future one would be my suggestion as well and going back to this one in the next few days would probably be ideal. Asking yourself why this has occurred would be key–I agree!!
So in one of the lessons that I taught for my Science 8’s, I wanted the class to fill in a table from reading the textbook. I had my own notes for the definitions that they needed to fill out and I knew what I wanted to highlight to the class. However, when planning the lesson, I didn’t foresee where the students would struggle when trying to get the definitions from the textbook and thus I didn’t do a very good job explaining to them how to go about filling in the table (for example, they shouldn’t just copy straight out of the textbook because the textbook definitions didn’t match up exactly with what I was asking for from the table). Many of the students ended up becoming very confused and frustrated. In the future I will definitely try to predict where students will struggle, so that I can proactively address those issues.
Great point Sarah! I have found that completing the assignment from the students perspective, or making an answer key is one of the best ways to predict where the students will struggle. It is also worth making a note in your binder of what worked well, what didn’t, and any changes that need to be made for the following year.
Another thing to consider in these cases is how the assignment was presented. Would your students’ frustration/confusion be decreased if you gave this as a group assignment, or perhaps in a jigsaw format where the students weren’t responsible for finding all of the answers? There might be a relatively simple way to make a lesson more effective, without reworking it too much!!
What do you do when a student comes to see you about missing school for a few days right at the beginning of class? He informs you that he will be missing three classes and would like you to tell him what he will be missing? He has known about this absence for a while (being that his flight leaves this afternoon), but this is the first you are hearing about it. Do you scramble to get things together for him? What do you do with the rest of the class–bell has gone? The student is waiting and his attitude to top it all off is not very desirable!
I think this would be a great opportunity to remind the whole class about student expectations! If you have already stated your expectations for absences like you need a note from a parent, you can remind the class now. As a teacher you are not required to give material for future missed days so if you are caught off guard, it might be a good idea to say come see me when you get back. I had a student in two of my classes come to me and let me know they were leaving for two weeks at the beginning of the term!! They wanted the material from both classes for the whole two weeks! I gave them a bit of work but not everything: we can’t spread ourselves too thin for every student in the class. Students do need to take responsibility for missing class.
This happened to me also. This student’s flight is leaving this afternoon and he will miss 2 days of classes (and a lab). He did not tell me until the end of class when I had to run off to another class. I told him what he will be missing and that he will need to do the pre-lab and everything that he missed. I didn’t have time to tell him the details of what to do, so I told him that it was his responsibility to get the details from him friends.
I have a problem: any suggestions? I have a student that is late to my first block class every morning. I have already told the class on the first day that my expectations are no lates in my classroom because it is not respectful to me or the rest of the students. I’ve also informed them that their lateness is always recorded and will affect their effort mark in this course. This student is not apologetic or remorseful for being late and does not seem to respond to these consequences to their effort mark. Is anyone else dealing with a problem like this? Suggestions would be much appreciated!!
Hey Jessica,
You have already made the student aware of the consequences of being late, you want to make sure you follow thru on them, maybe even an interim sent home if their marks are being adversely affected. If the student continues to be late a call home would be a good idea and maybe touching base with their counsellor to see if there are any issues you may need to be aware of. Keep track of everything you have done to deal with the students lateness and get administration involved if the disrespect and lateness continues.
Hope this helps!!
Beant
Hi Jessica,
Don’t let kids coming late take too much of your focus and time. Spend your energy doing what you’re training to do (i.e. teach)with the kids who get themselves there on time. What Beant said is very wise (as usual), call her parents, talk to the kid, etc. but at the end of the day you only have so much influence. My experience is that some kids (and grownups) will be late for everything for most of their lives. You will never have much influence on this aspect of a person’s life.
The biggest problem I had with kids coming late was the disruption it caused the class. To alleviate this I had the “desk of shame” in the back corner right by the door, anyone who came late was to sneak in very quietly and sit in the desk of shame without disturbing the class.
A student last week informed us–first Mary and then myself– that one of the assignments that she would be completing (one on propaganda) was against her religious beliefs and she felt she would be promoting violence. She discussed with us that it states in the Bible that this is something that one should not do, and therefore felt that she could not complete this assignment. I would be interested in seeing how you would deal with this?
Hi Adrienne,
Interesting situation there! I’m wondering: I have no issue with respecting this student’s religious beliefs, so if she does not feel able to complete this assignment I can live with that. With that in mind however, perhaps you utilize this belief as a launching point for a related but different assignment for this student. Could she write about what the inherent problems are with propaganda, and why she feels it is something that shouldn’t be promoted?? I would imagine that she should be able to complete something along those lines without violating any of her own beliefs.
Thanks for the suggestion John.
That is similar to what we suggested to the students. She will be creating her own assignment that still meets the learning outcomes of the original assignment and one which does not violate her beliefs. I was wondering if anyone has ever had a similar situation???–this one was a first for me.