Well, I found out another disadvantage with mixed classes in the same time period. Now I am having trouble with my Carpentry 1 students complaining about the Introduction Class Students doing things that they were not able to do last semester. I made some changes in the curriculum to make the class more interesting for the Introduction Class and now I have jealousy in the Carpentry 1 Class to resolve. I tried explaining the reasons for the changes but that went in one ear and out another on most of them. I really wanted to tell them to "Shut-up, grow-up, and do their own work"..................but I didn't........I kept my cool and left them stew on it for a while. I moved on with the class and ignored the complaining. Three different classes in one class period is just too many. They are all getting cut short on their education and they have one teacher who is getting frustrated.
mikem.
Showing posts with label Multi-Level Classes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Multi-Level Classes. Show all posts
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Anyone have extra time to sell? (you could make a fortune)
Let me say first that I can identify with something in each of the previous posts. There never is enough time to do what you need to do, let alone accomplish the things that you want to. I have lots of ideas in my head but they all take time to plan and implement, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done.
There are a lot of frustrating things that go along with teaching (along with a lot of good things), but there is one thing in particular that I have to deal with every day in my second period class. This class is a multi-subject class (networking, web design & programming), and because of that I’m obviously not able to teach the class in a traditional way. While this situation presents lots of hurdles to jump over, the one that gets me every day is the flow of my web design class.
Since I have three subjects in the room at the same time, the students have to step up and take more responsibility for their learning than they are used to. They need to take the material that I give them; read and understand it, and implement it in their assignments. While they all have been good about doing that, the problem is that they all move at a different pace. Some of the students are very familiar with the material and move quickly, while the students at the other end move much more slowly and have a harder time grasping the material. Truth be told I could probably spend all day just working with these students, but obviously that’s not fair to the rest of the class. Unfortunately, it’s difficult for most of the students to do any of the work at home because they don’t have the proper software.
I struggle with keeping the students somewhat together. In class we talked about using enrichment activities with the faster moving students while the others catch up. I thought about it and tried floating that out there with some of my students. Most of them were not very interested (unless it meant extra credit). Most of them just want free time to do what they want.
It seems like every day I see the slower progressing students slipping further and further behind. I thought about just reducing the complexity and workload for those students, but finding the time to do that is hard (unless I don’t care about spending time with my family). I guess it’ll work itself out (it usually does).
Rules we all should remember:
Don’t sweat the small stuff
Everything is small stuff
There are a lot of frustrating things that go along with teaching (along with a lot of good things), but there is one thing in particular that I have to deal with every day in my second period class. This class is a multi-subject class (networking, web design & programming), and because of that I’m obviously not able to teach the class in a traditional way. While this situation presents lots of hurdles to jump over, the one that gets me every day is the flow of my web design class.
Since I have three subjects in the room at the same time, the students have to step up and take more responsibility for their learning than they are used to. They need to take the material that I give them; read and understand it, and implement it in their assignments. While they all have been good about doing that, the problem is that they all move at a different pace. Some of the students are very familiar with the material and move quickly, while the students at the other end move much more slowly and have a harder time grasping the material. Truth be told I could probably spend all day just working with these students, but obviously that’s not fair to the rest of the class. Unfortunately, it’s difficult for most of the students to do any of the work at home because they don’t have the proper software.
I struggle with keeping the students somewhat together. In class we talked about using enrichment activities with the faster moving students while the others catch up. I thought about it and tried floating that out there with some of my students. Most of them were not very interested (unless it meant extra credit). Most of them just want free time to do what they want.
It seems like every day I see the slower progressing students slipping further and further behind. I thought about just reducing the complexity and workload for those students, but finding the time to do that is hard (unless I don’t care about spending time with my family). I guess it’ll work itself out (it usually does).
Rules we all should remember:
Don’t sweat the small stuff
Everything is small stuff
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