T2Wk6-Open Book Test

3E2

I am almost shouting out loud 'Hallelujah Praise the Lord!' Except for a few people who continue to NOT pay attention to what I'm saying, most of this class have been quite cooperative. There are a handful who are really serious about wanting to do well and I am heartened.

They continue to be the class I think of most in terms of how to engage them and make learning more meaningful. I know many do not bother to read and study the wonderful notes prepared and printed for them. Yesterday, I decided to administer a surprise test on coordinate geometry. It was an open book test and they could discuss their solutions. I am glad I did this. For one, they were forced to read and go through their notes! It was a great sight to see some of them pouring through the notes, discussing the various formulae that were taught and deciding which they should use. Peer teaching in my humble opinion does serve a good purpose here, those who didn't quite know were helped by those who knew, and those who knew reinforced their learning by helping those who don't.

More than 1/2 the class passed the test, about 6 just failed (9-9.5 out of possible 20 m marks) and the rest failed badly. This last lot are neither slow nor unable, they seem to lack a certain amount of motivation and discipline. My immediate challenge thus is to move this lot up in their level of motivation....Tall task indeed...

Praises go a long way sometimes..:)

Coming back to the classroom after a long absence presented some surprises and shock. But I'm slowly adapting and getting the hang of things again.:)

Since my last post, I have been doing lots of thinking. One of the things I have decided is to stop thinking negatively of any one in any of my classes. No matter how challenging anyone can get, think positive, even the toughest of criminals break down in tears with a little love and concern, what more young teens who are still feeling their way around a world where they are neither kids nor adults...

Being a mom for a number of years has been helpful too in the classroom. The skills I picked up mothering my own kids can be put into use in the classroom. How wonderful! One of the things I'm mindful of doing in the midst of all the disciplining and chastising is to add a dash of praises and compliments here and there. I found that to be very helpful indeed.

2N1/N2

There's a boy in this class who was a little challenging and I wasn't able to engage him much. I found myself giving him a telling off quite many times. For some reason, he was very early one day last week for my lesson. In fact he was the 1st one outside the classroom when I got there. Surprise no.1! I said to him, "Hey you are very early, that's really GOOD! Well done!" He actually paid attention the whole time in class and even voluntarily came up to me to point out a mistake I made on the white board!-Surprise #2!! I am so glad to find him outside the classroom the earliest for every lesson since then!:))

Another boy in this class was very surprised when I asked about his basketball game. I followed up with the games he played for the North Zone competition. From zero eye contact and "bo-chap" attitude, I am getting eye-contact and really neat work from this boy:)

Workwise, most of the students in this class have been attentive hence enabling them to follow my lessons. This can be seen from the assignments handed up and the recent test on graph drawing in which everyone passed. Lets hope they can retain all that have been taught.

We have a few more periods to do some revision for this class. Phew!