6.22.2007

summer school

I've been teaching summer school at DVHS for the last 3 1/2 weeks. I've found a way to fit an entire semester's worth of material in that amount of time: craziness. I had 17 students to start, one found out she'd passed the class, so she left, and two more dropped for absences. 14 students for the past week: not bad. All of these students were given the shot to retake this class after they just failed it this past semester during the normal schedule. I think this set up works better for these students, though: less time from lesson to quiz, from quiz to test, and so on. I do four things each day: any mixture of lessons, reviews, quizzes, and tests. For instance, the first day of summer school, the students had 4 lessons in the same day, but yesterday they had a test first thing, and then three lessons after that. It was a lot of material in a short amount of time, but these students seemed to enjoy it and did well. Other than the two that dropped for absences (they were allowed 2 at most, they both had three and then were dropped), I now have no students with Fs in the class as they enter the final exam (which they are taking right now). I have liked this setup, as it was more like college. We had four hour sessions each day, each with two 15 minute breaks evenly spaced in the day. It gave a sense of trust and freedom that the students normally don't get throughout the regular semester. I am now really looking forward to possibly teaching at a community college one day. We'll see what the LORD brings our way.

1 comments:

Unknown said...

I was just noticing how no one comments on your blog. Does that fact make you in any way feel like a loser? Maybe some cloudy ice would be appropriate.

Just kiddin! Hope all is well and I'm looking forward to our diplomacy game.