Finish what you start

Something I learned this week that I would never do again is to assign a project when students are not completely done with another project. Last week my students worked diligently on a video project, however some of my students finished a lot earlier than I anticipated. I anticipated that some of my students would finished before other students would, however I didn't expect them to be done so fast which threw me off. It's a good thing to a certain extent because their projects were completed very well and I was impressed. Typically when students finish so fast, their work isn't good. However, I was completely wrong. I thought to myself, I didn't want my students who finished early to spend two days doing busy work so I assigned them the next project which was a group project. As a result, some of the group members who were still completing the previous project were not able to participate in the planning stages of the new project, and there was confusion among some groups. I know having an activity prepared for students who finish early is something which I have to develop. However, I know more importantly, I have to make sure that I have to finish what I start because if I don't, I may have a bunch of confused students and that is never a good thing.