Week 3’s theme was all about listening, something these grade 7s really need to work on. At the beginning of the week I set a goal for the class to work on listening to each other better so we could carry out a whole class discussion. At the end of this week, I wouldn’t exactly say we’ve accomplished this goal… Overall, I would say that the students are more respectful toward me, but in terms of listening to each other, they still have a long way to go.

I had the students self evaluate their own behaviour and listening on the rubric they created at the end of the week. Most of the students answered honestly, but 2 students (who are the usual culprits) were way off on their reflections. I’m going to talk to these students next week and see if I can get them to realize the discrepancy between the behaviour I notice during the day, and the self assessment they completed.

My poetry lesson went fairly well this week, although I learned a little bit about who works well in a group together and who doesn’t. The students prepared a choral dramatic reading in groups for the class, once again getting the students to listen to each other ‘respectfully’ was the biggest challenge. Even though the students knew that they had to perform these poems and wanted their classmates to listen, they didn’t remember this themselves once they were part of the audience. I’m going to continue reminding students and drawing their attention to their own behaviour when it happens; more creative solutions may be needed in the coming weeks.

This week was a short week, and so is the next. There have also been track rotations, meetings with the highschool articulation committee, a field trip, and prep for student conferences. Next week it seems that we have almost no teaching time, as there is more track, conferences, a trip to the high school, jump rope for heart, and a presentation in the gym of some sort. I feel like I have been doing more handing out and collecting of notices (playland, gr 7 camp trip, highschool math challenge, sex ed speaker, fun night PAC notices) and general admin work than actual teaching this week. Hopefully this will change in the next couple of weeks, but I’m certainly not expecting to get through as many lessons as I have prepared. I’ve already decided to change my final project for social studies as there is not enough time to complete it. Being flexible and going with the flow is definitely something I’m getting practice at.