Not Going to Say Much

Yup.

This post is not going to say much because, well, I'm a wreck.

The presentation on Edmodo this morning was rough. Lots of teachers, lots of questions, and lots of needing to repeat myself. I thought I was prepared, but there were a lot of things I didn't foresee (that I should have, as a teacher. Dang it). The compliments on my presentation were comforting though. Thank heavens for a supportive staff (that probably knew I was developing an ulcer just standing there in front of them).

The Common Assessment that I graded over the weekend really made me start to question my success as a teacher. We're talking epic failures. I kept seeing mistakes that I had warned students about like, "Don't just write one sentence! One sentence is not enough to give me all the evidence I need!" But I still got a good 30+ students who turned in one INCOMPLETE sentence.

It was all good feedback, and I need to be healthy about it. I probably should have told students to do the short answer questions first so that had enough time to dedicate to those questions. I probably should have rewritten the question on the television so that students had a better understanding of what the question was asking. I probably could have just been a better teacher.

It doesn't help that this particular test we used was pulled from a "State Test Preparation" cite which explained that the questions were modeled after what students would see on state tests. Nope. Doesn't help at all to think that my students are going to bomb those tests too.

How do I get through it all? How do I get through to them? I try to anticipate student responses (like the one sentence thing), but even when I do, it doesn't necessarily get through.

So today, I pulled up actual student responses to the question. I very somberly delivered the news about the test results and told them that they had ONE last chance to redeem themselves. I reread the question and showed them a strategy for answering short answer questions on tests (underlining/circling different parts of the question so they know that some questions are actually asking students to do multiple things!), and I showed them some not-so-great student examples and had them score them for me. This helped them understand what they did well, what they didn't do and what they needed to improve.

I hope.

Only that new stack of papers in my bin knows that answer.

Current inner mantra: I am not my students' failures. I can always do more, but I am not the reason for their failures.

(And yes, some students did remarkably well by using the phrases I taught them... So, I'll think about those students for a little while and get over this snowy, dreary, Monday hump.)