This week has been a little hard in regards to the effort my students are putting into their work.
With the help of my SA we started a class literature circle where students are placed in similar reading groups. All the books had a common theme of personal dilemmas. Each student had a specific role in their group: discussion leader, word wizard, summarizer, character analyzer and story/real-life connector. Each role was then followed by a reflection/prediction sheet. In order to make this literature circle a success I had the kids practice roles and doing the prediction sheet with smaller stories. I was hoping to provide with practice so when it comes times for the actual literature circle the student would do a well job. In an attempt to help the student be successful I modelled how to complete the role sheets and prediction sheet, provided in-depth feedback on the practice run and provided a clear and concise checklist of my expectations.
After week one of the literature circle I was astonished to see that students did not do so well. I then went back and gave students more feedback and an opportunity to improve their marks. I even told the student out of the four week I will only assess two of their best ones. Even with all these means of support and attempts of setting them up for success majority (not all) of the students did not bother.
I was very disappointed in myself. I felt like I was not doing my job properly. I thought I was setting my students up for failure than success.
It can be discouraging to find that students haven’t met expectations in terms of work completion. Sometimes it could be that they run out of time, sometimes it may be more homework than they are able to manage, sometimes it is that they simply don’t want to complete it and sometimes the work is too challenging or not challenging enough. As teachers, we are always looking to support student learning. Giving choices as to how to show their learning sometimes helps to motivate them, Allowing extra time for completion or giving less can also be helpful. It is good to reflect on what might be helpful and try various strategies.