When all your students are fully engaged…

…does that mean they’re actually learning something?  I wonder sometimes.  I was observed today by a couple of people who work for TFA nationally and somehow that got me energized.  I’d been telling myself for awhile that I need to teach with more energy but that was defnintely some motivation for me!  When they were here I was all about doing my checks for understanding, walking around the room making sure every student was engaged, and picking my battles that I would ordinarily get into with students very wisely.  Amazingly enough, without my nit picking, students came right in, got right to work, stayed mostly fully engaged, and we didn’t run out of time for what I had planned for the first time in a long time.  I am perpetually feeling behind.  I know it’s only week three, but have already noticed so many things I’ve done wrong, could have done better, and I’m really hoping to organize all of that stuff before the spring semester comes and I have two different preps to worry about.

Anyway, back to the point of this post.  I’m still not sure if they “get it”.  Yesterday they seemed to “get it” on their exits slips so I did a quick review and moved on, but today they weren’t able to respond quickly to my questions and during their exits slips I realized many of them are simply copying from their notes.  That’s not exactly what the point of an exit ticket is.  I need to do some better time management things so that I give them enough time to pack up their stuff AND to finish their exit slip without the crutch of the notes so that I can see how much they are actually retaining.

I was up late late…like I slept about 4 hours…last night because I was motivated to get some sort of vision for where it is I need to go with this class before the mid-term.  As I said earlier I am already feeling perpetually behind but I do feel like I have a better vision now and at least some sort of continuity between my units and objectives that I can teach more fluidly.  I’m hoping to get a better handle on the overal purpose and the long term plan over the weekend.  We’ll see how that goes. 

Tomorrow I have progress reports to give out.  My students who didn’t do so well on their exams and who haven’t come to class or done any of their homework might be a little shocked.  Maybe it will motivate them to do some work for me…

better get to class, the bell just rang