Seating plans and motivation

I remember as a practicum student that it was difficult to arrange a room where students worked well. I always resist seating plans initially as I am not sure how the social groups were aligned.

One strategy that is reasonably effective is to run a test, pair desks in rows and put the high scorers in the t-zone (through the middle and in front) and then put next to each one a student that they don't "hate" but is performing below their ability level. Any students that have lost focus/have situational issues or are behavioural challenges can be isolated to corners until attitudes improve. I put the high performers across the corridors so that they still have contact with each other but are often tempted to discuss with their partner first as it is easier to compare notes. In upper classes it can be good to do this a few weeks before the end of term and tell them that it can go back to free seating at the start of next term.

Like this (in a square room):

UH HU UH HU (U=Underachiever)
BM UH HU BM (H=High Achiever)
MM UH HU MM (B=Behavioural challenge)
BM UH HU MB (M=mid range student)

I then start a new topic and run a paired activity. It takes a bit of encouragement for students to speak to their partners, but quickly enough it stops much of the social chat in the classroom (as they have little socially in common) and promotes chat about the topic at hand. It's not a permanent solution but can raise the 'happiness' quota especially if struggling students need more attention in a big class where teacher time is limited.

This helps the underachievers as they have modelled behaviour from the high performers. It also allows separating chatty students without feelings of being "singled out".

Teaching index laws cont..

Ok, I was with my little challenge group again today. I had the full range of students all with their own idiosyncrasies, the rapper (and his periodic burst of song and then bouts of narcolepsy), farty (with his own special tuba), the two in love (that hate each other passionately), kermit (with his constant slurping noise), the dark cloud and the two year old. Normally when introducing indices I would do it one law at a time. With this group though, I had to do something different as I'd have glazed eyes and riots after the first five minutes. So... I introduced them all at once and focused on helping them generalise what is basically a group of abstract concepts.

I put a range of examples and the laws on the board and asked them to find the law that was most like the equation supplied. They then looked to see which law could be used to simplify the equation. By the end of the class they had a reasonable idea of what could be done - I selected the part of the equation we were simplifying (at this stage they could not decide what to do first) and they chose which law to use to simplify it. All of this was done with algebraic terms, tomorrow we go back to numeric terms and start looking at BIMDAS (order of operation) so they begin to think themselves what order to apply the laws - and evaluating the answer with their calculators.

One difficulty I have found is getting these students to continue working/thinking for the whole lesson. I'm breaking it up by enforcing copying of information from the board into their books (mainly as a break from the interactive work on the whiteboard) to promote engagement when as a group they select the correct law to apply and I model how it is performed/recorded. This way they can participate for a whole working period, not just a play time or a pocket of time where they pay attention between potential rewards.

Real Estate & the calibre of staff

I have worked in many careers, but my first was as a receptionist (of all things) when I was 17. I worked in a real estate office for three years.

Now if there is any career to direct a real plod of a student it has got to be real estate (What am I saying about myself??!!??) and the real estate rep generally is the stupidest person and most dishonest you can find.

Anyhow.. I come home today and there is a real estate for sale sign on my home. I think to myself.. have I decided to do this in a moment of insanity (no.. I don't think so..), has my mushbrain pregnant wife done so.. (no.. she loves her home)... did I not pay the mortgage this week??

No.. the real estate company "Ray White" just decided to put my house up for sale. A quick phone call and the sign was gone literally 3 mins later and two reps had some fairly burning ears. If they can't put the for sale sign on the right house, I wonder how good they are at selling houses (or even the right one!).

Not to mention the agents that can't read "no junk mail" yet still drop unsolicited mail in the mailbox (yes Professionalscoastal - Monika van Namen - I mean you!).

Yep.. an industry still full of plods.

grrrrrrr....

Issues with classroom differentiation

In my top year 10 class, although basically ability streamed (with a few exceptions in the class for social reasons), I have thirty students. Behaviourally there are few problems but as the year has progressed I have 8-10 3AB MAS/MAT bound, 3-4 3AB MAT, 8 2CD bound and 10 2A bound.

This means that as the course continues, student goals are different for each block of students. For some it is so important that they master content now (such as 3D trig and bearings) to leave time for new content introduced in 3AB MAS and 3AB MAT. For those entering 2CD next year, they have a few bites at the cherry, the content is seen for the first time this year, consolidated next year and mastered in the following year. For the 2A crew they do not ever have to master some of the content, but by spending extra time on the basic concepts of more difficult areas of mathematics (especially algebra), they have a higher chance for success as they need to learn very little new content over the next two years.

With such broad groupings though, students are feeling frustrated that they cannot reach the 3A MAS bound students and some have asked to be moved to lower classes (better to be a big frog in a little pond, than a little frog in a big pond). Yet I have resisted this as there are transition issues this late in the year moving students between classes and no guarantees of success in lower ability classes. I have tried to redirect them to before and after class tutoring sessions.

I just thank my lucky stars that we streamed at the start of the year (thanks to one of my colleagues pushing for it). If there were 1B students in the class as well as behavioural issues the class would have had no 3A students at all.