We arrived at school early and set up our classroom. We met our summer mentor teacher (SMT) and waited. And waited. And waited.
Eventually, two students walked in. Just two. And they came in a half hour later than start time.
They were nice, though. They both passed the Regents. One is a rising senior who transferred from another school and needed an extra credit. The other one is a rising sophomore who failed the class due to lack of attendance. Cool! I get a chance to challenge two students who have already mastered the material. Right?
Not quite.
After a brief discussion of classroom policy among the four of us, we gave them their assessments. They worked hard, and then filled out our personal student surveys.
The surveys were interesting to read. They both want to get a better understanding of biology, especially with the technical vocabulary. One girl mentioned that she was shy, but even though she was afraid to raise her hand she still might know the answer.
We were told my many sources that the class roster will change several times throughout the first week, so we should be prepared for a class of 20, although it will likely end up smaller. It was surprising to find out that the second class period (taught by two other CMs) had 19 students, many of them difficult and boisterous.
So we went back to grade our assessments. And our students scored...48% and 30%. What? These students passed the Regents exam? One as recently as last month? Maybe this summer was not going to be so easy.
A history class ended up with 37 students today, so I helped them grade their assessments. Then I helped grade the assessments from the second biology section. I could always work part time as a Scantron machine. I'm awesome at it.
The afternoon was filled with analyzing our assessment (not difficult to do--most topics need review) and squeezing a year's worth of objectives into four weeks. But first, we got some advice from our School Director: we will not be teaching on Fridays. We knew it was a possibility, but were previously told it wouldn't apply to us. It's a mixed blessing. Good: fewer lessons to plan. Bad: fewer days to squeeze our lessons in. Good: time for individual academic intervention with students. Bad: more hours of sitting personal development. Good: more time to work on lesson plans. Bad: we still have to be in school on Fridays.
Part of the data analysis lesson included a Google Maps metaphor:
Satellite View: Look at the class; identify areas of strength of struggle
Map View: Look at the objectives; identify areas of strength and struggle, and consider what is foundational
Street View: Look at your kids; identify who needs enrichment and remediation
We also saw a picture of Data (Star Trek) with the subtitle "Data is sexy".
We finished our tentative summer calendar. It involved squeezing too many objectives into the summer, but in blocks by topic. It is difficult to triage the foundational objectives, because the NYS Regents Living Environment is designed for breadth rather than depth. We decided to teach more main ideas per class, but work hard to have students master the basic ideas rather than try to include all of the details. It is fortunate that we are not limited by needing to prepare our students (so far) for the Regents in August.
I'm exhausted. I can't wait to teach a real lesson tomorrow. We're learning about the Scientific Method (least interesting, most important) from my collab, and I'll be teaching about independent variables, dependent variables, control group, experimental group, and constants. I can't wait to meet my new students tomorrow.
11 lesson plans and one mid-Institute Assessment to write. Only 3-and-a-half weeks left!
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