For my final day in the classroom with
my 8A parallel (the tougher of the two parallels) I wanted to get
their feedback in a way where they could all share. For both
parallels I made awards for each student and recognized them
individually for something they earned or did well during the partial
such as “most improved writing.” With 8A, I decided to have them
discuss openly what I could have done better, what we should have
covered more during the unit, how I can better manage the classroom,
etc. As always, some students sat on the floor as I was while others
remained in their desks, but they all contributed to the
conversation. That is how that parallel worked, once 3 or 4
contributed, they all felt compelled to add to the conversation and
got ideas from what their classmates said. Instead of having each of
them write down answers on paper, I got much more beneficial fedback
from them just by talking to them. I don't think we could have done
this if we hadn't built a rapor with one another. They trusted me not
to get angry with their honesty, and I trusted them to help me with
that honesty, one reason why I both loved and had trouble with this
parallel.
Our class discussion lasted about 20
minutes, moving through the questions and hearing the opinion of
every single student. Here are some of the most helpful things the
students told me:
- “Use individual punishment rather than just taking daily points from our grade and a way for us to see it.”
-Explaination: At the beginning of the
unit I realized that I needed some sort of system for keeping the 8A
class responsible for talking out of turn, disrupting class, etc. so
I used the same method that my MT had used. I would take points off
of their “daily grade” which was a system the school used called
“attitude assessment” that would be added into their final grades
at the end of the partial. While the kids were used to this, I wasn't
and was unsure about what constituted points being taken off or
given, so I just used a clipboard and took off points when they were
talking when someone else was or disrupting class. At first it
worked, but some students did not care about their grade and I really
didn't have an alternate plan for them other than just sending them
outside of the class. I picked this up in the fall, but one of the
teachers I observed at Colegio would tell his students to go outside
until they were ready for class which I liked because it put how long
they were in the hall in their hands. I started using the same line
and that worked with two of my problem students. Still, there were
some small disruptions that should have been prevented and my kids
told me that one of their previous teachers would punish them with a
minute of wall sits (physical punishment, is this legal?) and would
write their name on the board in a box. There were three boxes on the
board and whomever was the final person to get their name in the box
would get an email home to his or her parent. Basically, the class
had to try together to keep from being punished. They also had good
boxes that worked the same way. I don't think I will try wall sits
because that seems like it would take a lot of time out of the class,
but I do like the box idea.
- “Spend more time on the history.”
-I do wish I could have done this
because my 8th graders had never learned about the Civil
Rights Movement in depth before. We may have had more time to cover
it if I'd cut out certain activities, but at the time I though two
days was enough time to cover the most important aspects of the
movement. The student were generally interested in the racial hate
crimes and the people that fought it, but I moved on to begin the
play and touched on these things sporadically nonetheless. I think
now that they would have gotten more out of the play and understood
it more if we would have covered this time in history more
thoroughly. If I do this play again in the states, I hope to work
with the students' history class to connecting history and literature
more thoroughly.
