That's what I always thought when it came to final exams I would count down the number of exams I had remaining every semester (or I suppose every quarter in college). This week was my placement's final exam week. While somewhat boring during the actual test itself, I've learned a few valuable things from what to do when something goes wrong to calculating grades in general:
1) seriously review all the material yourself before review days/exams - the students ask some really good questions sometimes!
2) What goes on after a student is caught cheating is really unpleasant for everyone involved : the teacher, the administration, the student and their parents
3) Just doing your work in class (not matter how poorly done it is) is SO much better than a 0. I had students going up full letter grades from turning in 1 mini-project assignment!
4) It's sometimes really frustrating to see a student's grade and then have to try and decide whether or not they deserve to be bumped up - or, really frustrating to see a student's grade and know that they tried so hard but the numbers don't work out and you can't really bump them up...
Other than that, I've begun to take over the 1 regular biology class and shadowing my mentor on the 2nd honors biology class that we have. And it's been fun so far! Can't wait to see how the new semester pans out starting next week!
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I'm thinking about your first observation about the great questions students ask about tests. It occurs to me that one goal we might set for ourselves is to seek moments where the "regular" curriculum is so compelling that the students are impelled to ask those kinds of "reading between the lines" questions. I even wonder if we could be explicit about looking for that level of interest/questions from our students as a central component of the class participation grade, or even something separate.
ReplyDeleteHmmm.
In any event, best of luck with the Bio class that you've taken on...looking forward to hearing more about your teaching adventures.