My kids have really been struggling lately with being in the learning pit. In fact, it feels as though some of them have set up camp and decided they are going to live down there forever. It has always been a challenge, especially in math, to encourage kids to keep on climbing to make their way out. My current unit has felt like a complete failure. Students seemed entirely unwilling to do the work necessary to be able to access the math at the 7th grade level. Given homework, about 30% of my students would complete it. Classwork? They would rather chat with their friends. Oh, they missed problems on the quiz? They'll do fine even if they take no steps to help themselves only to repeat the same again if not falling back even farther than where they were the previous quiz. I felt like I was failing them, but at the same time the saying "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink" became my mantra.
Until this week. Something finally started happening. Students were actually putting their skills together to solve the problems they will be asked to solve with the upcoming summative...and they were doing it. All of the sudden, they were starting to fly right out of that pit of learning. They were asking really good questions that were specific and when they were wrong, they were enthusiastic about figuring out what was the mistake and trying the problem again. All I hope it that it keeps up and they continue with the progress they are making.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
November 2019
Categories |