I found today's two classes a bit challenging for me - why? All the students in the class are at different levels of output. Some students - no problem are able to produce what I ask of them - write 2-3 examples, etc - while other students can only complete one and some students do not seem to understand the directions at all and have to ask several times what we are doing. There are also several students when I go up to them - cannot formulate any ideas - it is hard for them to write anything down on a piece of paper and when I probe them for ideas - they say....hmmm, I dont know...I'll ask...what about this, or what about that? And they'll say again....I dont know. I really dont know how I am to assess this type of output. It shouldn't be the case that these students get left behind.
Here was a break down of my lesson today -
(1) Students will assess their neighborhoods in three areas - outlook/perspective, opportunities/choice, belonging, making sure to account for their physical and digital spheres.
(2) I asked each student to write down examples of each and gave them a chart and a venn diagram to start comparing their neighborhoods to that of the main character in the novel.
I found that it was hard mobilizing students in both classes. It seemed in a way that I needed to hold their hand through the entire process and many students did not seem to understand.
Ways I can improve
* I could include more labels on the venn diagram or even do modeling on the computer that they can follow along
*I am breaking things down....okay well break things down even more into tiny little bits that they can process and I mean tiny. Maybe dont make them think about the physical and digital, but make them thinking about only one or the other.
*Everything needs to be structured bit by bit - instead of introducing PEA - Point, Evidence, Analysis all at once I need to introduce P - point, thats it and then E - evidence, and then A - analysis. The templates I give them need to be very much broken down.
*How I organize the handout MATTERS - labels need to be clearly defined, did I mention that everything needs to be broken down? (lol)
Success for today:
-they got their ideas onto a venn diagram - albeit slowly but the ideas were there
