One of my biggest struggles in teaching so far is figuring out how to meet students at every level. On one side of things, I have students that struggle greatly with typing (which makes everything take SO long!) and on the other side I have students that already know how to do everything I'm teaching.
The students that finish quickly are always becoming a distraction to those still working, despite the variety of "early finisher" activities that I provide. The EF activities usually include working on the homework, playing a typing game, or working on a tutorial that teaches an advanced concept of what we're learning. Students always opt for typing games and manage to be really distracting to others.
While the EF kids have been finished for ages and are bored, the slower students struggle to finish assignments during class. Because we use lots of specific software, not finishing work requires them to come in after school to finish. The same students always get stuck with needing to come after school, and often decide not to. Therefore, they easily get poor grades because they don't finish their work. I hate the inequality of some students always getting more work outside of class because they work slowly. It seems to set them up for failure.
Anyway, that's a big challenge for me right now. Probably pretty common for all teachers, with a unique twist since we do all our work on computers. Feel free to contribute any thoughts on how you've managed this!
1 comment:
Hi Annie,
Boy you really have a lot to juggle with!!! I am not a teacher myself but for the EF's could you maybe take out the Typing games that seem to be disturbing for the students still working? As far as the students who are working slowly, I would do my best to help them, and make sure they are informed about deadlines and times where they could work on their stuff at school but honestly how much control can you have over how much there are going to invest and care about their grade? Shouldn�t the school have an Intro class and an Advanced class? Sorry I am not coming up with any constructive thoughts but my heart goes out to you for sure. In Romania you would have had to repeat a whole year of school if you failed a class. Seriously! You could have had the lowest IQ possible (that would allow you to be in a public school) and still do your best and be motivated to at list pass the class. I wonder what motivates American children???
Anyways I am sure you are growing every day into a wonderful teacher and you are for sure gathering experience every day.
Keep up the good work dear Annie. Love and hugs from Denver, A
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