Calm before the storm

Crossed the half way point of the term and things finally calmed down for a few hours.  Most of my nine's have now completed their NAPLAN revision and we have a few lessons up our sleeve for the end of term.  They're settling down now that they are starting to realise

a) don't come to lessons unprepared or you will have to sit down the back doing lines and redo the lesson at lunch time.
b) don't do homework or you will stay in until it's done
c) refuse punishment and the number of lunchtimes double - the first with me and subsequent ones with the team leader.

It's old fashioned but the results speak for themselves.  Students that do their work feel good about themselves and students that would otherwise have fallen through the cracks are slowly coming online.  The next lesson is using the CAS calculators - so at least it will be a break from NAPLAN preparation and book work.

Our academic extension class started this week and the first five year 9 and 10 students experienced linear algebra ala aliens. We created bullets using linear equations and shot aliens with them.  Using CAS calculators made this quite fun experimenting with different spots on the hill (the hill was the y axis and we modified c for different points on the hill) and changing the angle of the laser (modifying m). Next lesson we'll use a series of linear equations to reflect bullets off mirrors.  I hope to extend this to matrices later as it is an obvious fit (even if it is only linear equations).  We'll do four lessons of this and then do some isometric and oblique drawing outside to help them visualise objects in 3D before starting some ballistics using quadratics and calculus before revisiting linear equations (with the ice cream example) and optimising some finance solutions.  At the end they were asking whether we could go for two hours instead of one (groan!).

A number of EPW's went out for my 11 and 12's including the Finance EPW I wrote over the last four weeks.  It seems common that 2C students don't know how to use their calculators and teachers are not confident an investigative approach is the best way to learn them.  Three teachers in my small group have all raised concerns about the EPW (seemingly without reading it) but we shall see how it goes.  Given that the answers are provided, online links to assistance has been given and they have a week to investigate, I lack understanding why this is so hard.  We shall see.

My tens are confidently using spreadsheet and finance mode on the CAS to solve a variety of compound interest and repayment problems.  I hope they don't face the same issues as the current year 11's when doing 2C and 3A with regards to using the calculator.

As always 1B's seem to underestimate the difficulty of the course and seemingly need to fail a test before they realise that they need to study.  I'm pretty sure my bunch are not going to top the three groups this time - but I have hope yet that some in class revision will turn them around.

A profession that consumes the individual

One of the things to consider as a teacher is how isolating the career can be. As someone responsible for 100 students and their individual well being, it can be easy to fall into the trap of allowing the job to consume all of your available time to effectively respond to their needs.

The better a teacher you become, the more you realise you can do. The more pressure there is to perform.

Focusing on one class leads to deficits in other classes. These deficits are then questioned and you start to doubt your ability and there starts a downward spiral difficult to arrest on your own.

Then there are personal considerations when faced with students that relate directly to your life story. The child that is facing issues that you faced as a child and believe you can make a difference to their lives. A laptop computer given on loan, buying a student text, giving a few minutes extra tuition, making sure they have enough money for an excursion, advocating for a student - I know teachers regularly do these things. Knowing that it would be difficult to enjoy your weekend and satisfy your conscience if you didn't act when you had the opportunity.

Another trap is allowing a deficit of time to let you lose your support network. Being consumed by teaching can lead to a one dimensional person, having only one interest and thus having limited interest to others. This can make it a lonely profession especially when the majority of conversation you have is with minors.

It doesn't just affect you, it affects those around you. Supporting a teacher is a full time occupation. You come home tired and spent. Events of the day can overwhelm you. It can be a real pressure cooker at times, especially around TEE and reports or when the playground is on fire.

Somebody told me about the monkey analogy and how if someone passed you the monkey - it was important to pass the monkey to another (yes it was an admin person). As a metaphor for problems I think as a teacher, the tribe of monkeys needs a support network capable of dealing with them. Admin sometimes needs to remember this.

Maybe I'm a bit old fashioned. Maybe I have to look at it a bit more like a job and less like an opportunity to make a difference. I wonder if I would be able to do it anymore if I thought about it that way.

It's no wonder many teachers are a little bit more than strange.

A bigger worry is that you fail to notice it after a while :-)

Good Day

After the issues with the 2C test it was nice to have a good day. My 10's were responsive and worked well whilst our Principal was in the room for a whole hour doing his impromptu visits. It's good that he does them, but it can be a bit harrowing. We investigated how to use our CAS calculators to build spreadsheets and will now start looking at the results to investigate compound interest further.

There were lots of things I would do differently with the lesson itself but I can't fault the kids in that they followed instruction, were able to use formulas and solve a compound interest problem using technology by the end of the lesson. After replacing most of the batteries in the morning, only two failed during the lesson which was ok.

I checked my 9's homework and that was a different story. I used some old fashioned "I will do my homework when my teacher asks me to otherwise I will have to write this." x 100 to ensure that students had some encouragement to do their homework in future. Those that did their homework enjoyed it if nothing else.

My 1B's are going ok, they finished the exercise but are not fully understanding cumulative frequency, so we will need to redo that lesson. I must remember tomorrow morning to hunt out a worksheet that will reinforce the connection between cf and median (and xf and mean).

A nice change from Friday.

Russ.

Making mistakes

You know.. it would be nice to not make mistakes. It's even better when your mistakes aren't distributed to multiple schools for scrutiny. I had the wonderful opportunity of writing three assessments for moderation groups all at the same time, two tests (one for 3A MAT and one for 2C MAT) and an EPW (for 2C). Tests did not exist that could be pulled off the shelf and I didn't want to use a Curriculum Council EPW as they have been widely leaked (yes I'm looking at you Curtin University!).

Anyhow, the 2C paper had an error (three circle Venn diagrams aren't part of the curriculum) and it was one of my complex questions along with another question that I changed at a teacher request to set notation. Unfortunately by doing so it also reduced them to non complex questions. The test (although broadly covering key concepts) did not have the required complexity.

Once marked the curve for my class was badly skewed. It's a bit embarrassing as it's the first time I've taught 2C and really wanted to do the right thing by my moderation group. The test had an error in it and I had to re-issue the marking key as well as the original one had mistakes in it too.

Hopefully the 3A paper is ok (it's harder than the 2C paper and I think my students are going to get a little wake up call) and I must say - the amount of work required to write a 2C EPW should not be underestimated. If you're interested in an original 2C Finance EPW based on spreadsheets leave a comment with your DET email address and I'll forward it to you (Your email address is safe, - I moderate all comments before release and I'll delete the comment before it goes online so that the email address is not made public).

I've been flat out trying to get it all done (and interim reports) and bed down my classes. Hopefully now it will settle as all of my NCOS assessments for term one have been done and I can start enjoying myself again working on the lower school courses. Ten year 9/10 students approached me today to run an afterschool extension class again. They're fun but a lot of work when you and the kids are hot and tired.

We'll see how it goes. Bring on the long weekend!