I found the most beneficial part of my week to be my Computer Applications classes. I created an activity where the students had to use Excel and think for themselves, instead of just typing from the book. The student's job was to gather information from their classmates and display it in Excel. The tough part was that the students had to form groups and figure out a logical way to gather the classmate's data. Each group then explained their idea to the class and we had a discussion about it. Each class came up with really great ideas and utilized technology (Class Central) to upload data. In the beginning, as expected, I heard a lot of, "This is stupid", "this is dumb" etc etc but by the end the students really put their heads together to problem solve this activity.
I feel I had a productive week and was well prepared with all of my lessons. If there were an aspect I would have wanted to change, it would have been not to have PSSA's. The PSSA's really disrupted my Period 4 Accounting class. The material was really complicated and each lesson was shortened by over 10 minutes. The shortened time period made the lessons not be able to be completed in a period, like usual. This disrupted homework assignments and the activities that we could cover. Other than that, great week. Hope everyone has a great weekend -- Jonny
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I think that the PSSA's have interfered with all of our classes this week. There is nothing that we can do to control that and we jsut need to work around them. That is great that the students finally liked the activity in computer applications. It is always good to get them away from the book work.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you had a great activity for the students. I think that it is important at times to have the students do other work instead of from a text.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean regarding PSSA's intefering with classes. Since the time that I have been at Benton, we have had the PSSA's twice and each time the first period has not had class with me. This has made them behind the other two classes that I teach the same material in. This is something that we must work around when teaching.
Have a good week!
Testing - Testing - Testing! 'Tis the nature of education in the twenty-first century. But rather than beat them; join them!
ReplyDeleteTry to insert reading, writing, and math into each lesson to reinforce these skills for students. When proficiencies are developed in every class for every student, then testing is not the big monster for students, and teachers all feel a part of the students' success! :)