Today the freshman said, "Hey! I really like this class now. It's a lot better than it was last semester. No offense to [the previous teacher]. Like we do so much interactive stuff and it's not all just book work and lectures. I learn so much more when I can actually interact and do stuff."
And I merely smile at the whimsy of teenagers.
They can glide from peaks to valleys and back again so effortlessly.
I think that's one of the reasons I like them so well. They're so transparent--still unspoiled by the political facade of "niceness" they will learn to wear as adults. You don't have to wonder what they're thinking. And the same is true of their moods that we used to say of the weather, "If you don't like it, wait five minutes." There will be another mood change and those sunny smiles will be shining again.
That aside, I love the little shout-out for interactive methods. Here's to teaching youth to be thinkers and not mere reflectors of other men's thoughts.
So today the class worked on finishing a quiz I had given them on Thursday. The quiz was to make a poster describing the steps of creating a Microsoft Access database and putting information into tables. I planned to have them finish the poster and then use a cooperative learning technique called "Carousel Feedback" which goes something like this.
- Posters/projects are displayed
- Teams stand in front of their assigned project
- Teams rotate clockwise to the next project
- Teams discuss their reactions to the project and record feedback.
- They continue rotating, discussing and giving feedback until they get back to their own project.
I created a rubric for them to use for grading the posters, and was quite pleased to see how much more seriously they took the project after they got the rubric in their hands and realized what their peers (and I!) were going to be expecting to see. They buckled down and worked! The group with the sorriest looking poster (all picture and no content) decided to completely throw it out and made a new one that was quite detailed.
And my heart just gets warm to see them trying so hard to do their best. I'm starting to feel the joy of teaching again. I'm remembering why I love this. I love to watch people choose to improve themselves.
Lesson learned: Rubrics are very, very, very, very amazing tools. I shall use them often.
On Thursday I was struggling to know how to help Mr. Moody participate with his group. He was just sitting on a chair socializing while they did all the work. I went ahead and implemented my idea to have him take his own quiz. I was duly impressed with how well he took it.
Today while the other two members of his team were diligently working away finishing their poster, I came up beside him and asked him how the poster was coming. I told him, "I know you didn't get a chance to do as much of the work on it as you would have liked, but you know all the steps yourself don't you?"
Yes, he did.
"Ok then, I thought so. I'm in a tough situation to be able to give you a good grade for this quiz since you weren't able to participate much on the poster, but what we can do is, if you will just type me up a word document with the steps then I can grade you on that."
He humbly nodded and went straight to his computer.
Thank you for that one, Lord...
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