Today was considerably better compared to yesterday. Firstly, I do not have 5 hours of marking to do, and secondly I realised that one of my favourite kids in one of my Grade 8 classes was the one who got the best mark in the entire class. He is one of my favourites as he always engages with the work, volunteers to answer questions and does all the work on time and correctly. I am currently considering recommending him for IGGY (The International Gateway for Gifted Youth), yet he is new to the school so I cannot look at his previous grades to fully assess him before recommendation.
In other news, one of the kids asked me for additional help on a topic, so I volunteered to make them a worksheet that helps them and gives them some questions to do to reinforce their skills.
Better be off now - got lesson planning to do and worksheets to make!
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Monday, 22 August 2011
Marking
I've just finished marking the tests on graphs that I set Grade 8 earlier today. The results are quite interesting. Exactly half of those who sat the test got over the 30% pass mark, but individual marks ranged from 4% all the way up to 92%, indicating that I taught the brighter half of the class well, and the other half either did not pass attention or understand what I was teaching them.
As predicted, several people had copied answers from their neighbours tests. To be fair there were only 2 or 3 (out of a class of 30) for which it was blatant and on whose tests I wrote a very subtle note saying "This is an answer to a question on someone else's test..." Hopefully this will get the message across that I do not tolerate cheating!
I'll keep updating this post throughout the evening as I mark more work, so stay tuned!
Update 1: I've just finished marking one of the Grade 8 classes' assessed assignment on Ratios and Rate (the same one as I did with 8H and referenced in the post "Let's Sing the Grade 8 Classes that I Teach Song - A, B, G, H, J...", where I mentioned that out of 24 pupils, 2 got a zero, 15 passed and 3 got over 60%)
In this class 25 pupils submitted the assignment with 5 getting a zero, only 3 passing and those same 3 getting over 60%. In other words, they did worse. Much worse. And I asked them for 2 hours straight to ask me any questions they had about the assignment, and even when nobody said anything, went through similar questions. What did I do wrong?
I'll do another update when I have finished marking the other class' copies of this assignment. Hopefully they will have done better than this class...
Update 2: I've just finished marking the other class and in this class 32 pupils submitted the assignment with 4 getting a zero, 13 passing and 4 getting over 60%. Which is at least better than the previous class, but still not great...
So summarising the three classes:
8H - 8.3% zero - 62.5% pass - 12.5% over 60%
8B - 20% zero - 12% pass - 12% over 60%
8G - 12.5% zero - 40.6% pass - 12.5% over 60%
So basically, my best class was the one I taught the least. I guess that just means that I am an awful teacher...
Better be off now - got to mark their classwork books now...
Update 1: I've just finished marking one of the Grade 8 classes' assessed assignment on Ratios and Rate (the same one as I did with 8H and referenced in the post "Let's Sing the Grade 8 Classes that I Teach Song - A, B, G, H, J...", where I mentioned that out of 24 pupils, 2 got a zero, 15 passed and 3 got over 60%)
In this class 25 pupils submitted the assignment with 5 getting a zero, only 3 passing and those same 3 getting over 60%. In other words, they did worse. Much worse. And I asked them for 2 hours straight to ask me any questions they had about the assignment, and even when nobody said anything, went through similar questions. What did I do wrong?
I'll do another update when I have finished marking the other class' copies of this assignment. Hopefully they will have done better than this class...
Update 2: I've just finished marking the other class and in this class 32 pupils submitted the assignment with 4 getting a zero, 13 passing and 4 getting over 60%. Which is at least better than the previous class, but still not great...
So summarising the three classes:
8H - 8.3% zero - 62.5% pass - 12.5% over 60%
8B - 20% zero - 12% pass - 12% over 60%
8G - 12.5% zero - 40.6% pass - 12.5% over 60%
So basically, my best class was the one I taught the least. I guess that just means that I am an awful teacher...
Better be off now - got to mark their classwork books now...
Blackout
Firstly, apologies for the lack of updates over the weekend, we had another power outage that lasted from late on Friday through to Saturday night.
Over the weekend, we ended up going to the African Buffet on Nelson Mandela Square (which is part of the massive mall that is close to us) with Mary, Patrick and Patrick's two teenage sons. Mary and Patrick are the people at Warwick who pretty much founded Warwick in Africa, in fact, Patrick contributed the donation that allowed the first pilot scheme to run.
The buffet was a fairly interesting experience. I ate some ostrich meat, which is surprisingly tender and had an exceptionally long conversation with Patrick about some of the flaws with Warwick in Africa (such as not targeting Grade 7 and below) and just life in general.
On Sunday, we went to the Lion Park which, unlike the Safari did indeed have fences, offered some spectacular photos of the animals (including Cheetahs!) as well as giving us the opportunity to pet lion cubs.
At school today, I set my Grade 8s a test on graphs, and to discourage copying, made 4 separate copies with different numbers on them so, even if they tried to copy their neighbours, they would get the wrong answers. I'll give a bit of an update regarding how this worked when I've marked the tests (as well as the other piles of marking and lesson planning I have to do!)
Better be off now - got 50 tests, 90 books and 100 assignments to mark, all before dinner!
Over the weekend, we ended up going to the African Buffet on Nelson Mandela Square (which is part of the massive mall that is close to us) with Mary, Patrick and Patrick's two teenage sons. Mary and Patrick are the people at Warwick who pretty much founded Warwick in Africa, in fact, Patrick contributed the donation that allowed the first pilot scheme to run.
The buffet was a fairly interesting experience. I ate some ostrich meat, which is surprisingly tender and had an exceptionally long conversation with Patrick about some of the flaws with Warwick in Africa (such as not targeting Grade 7 and below) and just life in general.
On Sunday, we went to the Lion Park which, unlike the Safari did indeed have fences, offered some spectacular photos of the animals (including Cheetahs!) as well as giving us the opportunity to pet lion cubs.
 |
| Petting a Lion Cub |
At school today, I set my Grade 8s a test on graphs, and to discourage copying, made 4 separate copies with different numbers on them so, even if they tried to copy their neighbours, they would get the wrong answers. I'll give a bit of an update regarding how this worked when I've marked the tests (as well as the other piles of marking and lesson planning I have to do!)
Better be off now - got 50 tests, 90 books and 100 assignments to mark, all before dinner!
Friday, 19 August 2011
A Successful Day
I finally did it! I've managed to get Grade 8s to accurately (or close enough) plot graphs with proper axes! According to people in other schools this is something Grade 11 struggle to do so, if they have managed to learn it, and do remember it, I've made a huge difference.
I've also come to the realisation that the teachers are not as bad as I first thought. Although they seem not to care that much about the lower Grades, they are perfectly willing to give up their own time to teach extra lessons to Grades 11 and 12, focusing on the topics with which they struggle.
Two of my Grade 8 classes also managed to finish learning ratios including increasing and decreasing in a given ratio. Even the little kid who sits at the front and struggles with everything managed to do it.
I'm currently debating how mean I should be when setting my Grade 8 graphing test. I'm planning on making the questions quite nice, but to discourage cheating, I am contemplating writing multiple tests so they pupils cannot just copy off their neighbours, but instead will either have to walk around to get the answer (which I will be able to see) or will end up copying the wrong answers and making it obvious. Hopefully, this will result in the marks accurately reflecting where the pupils are, rather than where their neighbours are! The only flaw in my plan is that it will probably lower the class average and make me look like a poor teacher.
Better be off now - heading to an African buffet with live jazz later, hopefully Mary and Patrick (the people behind Warwick in Africa) are going to join us, as well as a few of the people from Witwatersrand!
I've also come to the realisation that the teachers are not as bad as I first thought. Although they seem not to care that much about the lower Grades, they are perfectly willing to give up their own time to teach extra lessons to Grades 11 and 12, focusing on the topics with which they struggle.
Two of my Grade 8 classes also managed to finish learning ratios including increasing and decreasing in a given ratio. Even the little kid who sits at the front and struggles with everything managed to do it.
I'm currently debating how mean I should be when setting my Grade 8 graphing test. I'm planning on making the questions quite nice, but to discourage cheating, I am contemplating writing multiple tests so they pupils cannot just copy off their neighbours, but instead will either have to walk around to get the answer (which I will be able to see) or will end up copying the wrong answers and making it obvious. Hopefully, this will result in the marks accurately reflecting where the pupils are, rather than where their neighbours are! The only flaw in my plan is that it will probably lower the class average and make me look like a poor teacher.
Better be off now - heading to an African buffet with live jazz later, hopefully Mary and Patrick (the people behind Warwick in Africa) are going to join us, as well as a few of the people from Witwatersrand!
Thursday, 18 August 2011
A Hard Day
Thursdays are always difficult for me due to timetabling. I am supposed to teach 6 periods of Grade 8 lessons before lunch, then help with 5 periods after lunch and then help at a Grade 12 revision session.
Unfortunately, today was the day that the mathematics department was getting externally moderated, so all the teachers (or educators as they call themselves) from the maths department had to remain in the staff room all day.
Guess who had to cover their lessons?
In total I taught all 11 half hour periods today (5 without planning), followed by helping in a 45 minute revision class, which I think is what anyone would consider a fairly busy day!
Better be off now - dinner is almost ready and I've got to go try and warm up before we freeze (we ran out of gas last night so there is almost no heating!)
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
*Insert Loud Scream Here*
Just to give an update to the potential cheating situation yesterday, I put an example on the board and, as planned asked the class for the answer, expecting (if they had indeed cheated) the answer would be very slow in coming, or be wrong. Unexpectedly, they managed to answer it correctly and very quickly, lending support to the argument that most of the class are very intelligent, except for one or two pupils who had failed to pay attention. I will monitor the situation further, as I still believe it is suspicious for so many pupils to do so well on a worksheet.
One of my other classes today however, clearly fall into the 'not-so-intelligent' category as, although I put several examples on the blackboard and got no response when I asked if there were any questions, I repeatedly got asked whilst walking around to explain what I had on the board. The most annoying thing, that almost made me scream at how stupid they were, was a pair of girls who repeatedly failed to see that 2/3 of 60 is the same as 2/3 times 60 although I kept pointing at the line above which said 3/4 of 80 is the same as 3/4 times 80. The amount of times they gave me things such as 78 times 4109 honestly made me get to the stage when I was getting slightly annoyed at them for not seeing that they were going considerably wrong.
Better be off now - it's dinner time!
One of my other classes today however, clearly fall into the 'not-so-intelligent' category as, although I put several examples on the blackboard and got no response when I asked if there were any questions, I repeatedly got asked whilst walking around to explain what I had on the board. The most annoying thing, that almost made me scream at how stupid they were, was a pair of girls who repeatedly failed to see that 2/3 of 60 is the same as 2/3 times 60 although I kept pointing at the line above which said 3/4 of 80 is the same as 3/4 times 80. The amount of times they gave me things such as 78 times 4109 honestly made me get to the stage when I was getting slightly annoyed at them for not seeing that they were going considerably wrong.
Better be off now - it's dinner time!
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
An Essence of Cheating?
I just have finished marking my last class who had done the exchange rates worksheet and their marks make me feel suspicious.
Although they are the furthest behind in my teaching (due to timetabling), they scored the best overall, with only 6 out of 39 of the students getting below 60%, and 12 getting 100%. I find this oddly suspicious as the lowest mark in the class was below 10%, which indicates that either that student is very poor and almost the whole of the rest of the class are genii, or that most people in the class cheated. I was not in the lesson that the worksheet was set, but in the lesson before, I handed out marked copies to the class next door (which had a much more believable spread of results)!
To try and catch out any cheaters, in the lesson tomorrow, I'm going to put some similar questions on the blackboard and if nobody can answer them easily call out some of the names of the students who got 100% and ask why they cannot do it when they managed it so easily on their worksheets. I will tell you how this goes tomorrow!
Better be off (again) now - I've got over 45 stars to stick on the worksheets because, although I think they have probably cheated, I've got to stick to the reward system that I am using with my other classes else it would be unfair!
Although they are the furthest behind in my teaching (due to timetabling), they scored the best overall, with only 6 out of 39 of the students getting below 60%, and 12 getting 100%. I find this oddly suspicious as the lowest mark in the class was below 10%, which indicates that either that student is very poor and almost the whole of the rest of the class are genii, or that most people in the class cheated. I was not in the lesson that the worksheet was set, but in the lesson before, I handed out marked copies to the class next door (which had a much more believable spread of results)!
To try and catch out any cheaters, in the lesson tomorrow, I'm going to put some similar questions on the blackboard and if nobody can answer them easily call out some of the names of the students who got 100% and ask why they cannot do it when they managed it so easily on their worksheets. I will tell you how this goes tomorrow!
Better be off (again) now - I've got over 45 stars to stick on the worksheets because, although I think they have probably cheated, I've got to stick to the reward system that I am using with my other classes else it would be unfair!
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