Get Schooled

By Jeff

April 24, 2006 12:03 PM | Link to this

Patti,

EOCT and GHSGTs are over, but the third of the Trifecta is still to come… EOCTs are two weeks away!

As far as what I’ll be doing after EOCT: My high level class has a group project (the first time I’ve experimented with projects). It will basically be to teach a lesson which I will give them at the end of EOCT week. They have to do everything I do: Class Procedures, Class Rules, Discipline Plan, Lesson Plan, Homework assigned and homework solutions.

My low-level class will be doing 2 day reviews of each chapter from their text. Honestly, I’m more worried about the reviews than the group project!

By MMM

April 24, 2006 12:08 PM | Link to this

Field Trips!

By Teacher2

April 24, 2006 12:12 PM | Link to this

Our EOCTs are this week and next week and the scores from those tests count as the final exam grades in each subject (15%). After the tests are over I’ll teach a novel, with an accompanying project and paper, and during final exam time I will give a test over the novel.

By oldteacher

April 24, 2006 12:14 PM | Link to this

Classics!

By luvs2teach

April 24, 2006 01:07 PM | Link to this

We’re doing several projects and in-class presentations.

By buddy

April 24, 2006 01:08 PM | Link to this

still teaching skills,trying to give them as much as possible, they will not do anything over the summer.:(

By labmom

April 24, 2006 01:26 PM | Link to this

My Third Graders will be doing novel studies and research. These are two things I didn’t think we had time to go into detail before CRCT. Of course in elementary school there is field day, author teas, personal safety programs, summer reading program kickoff with the public library, talent show, fine arts night, and international night. That should be enough.

By APS TEACHER

April 24, 2006 01:33 PM | Link to this

just trying to not get killed! The APD swat team was out here last week, there’s no discipline and gang related fights almost every day now…enjoy your quiet suburbs gwenitians and cobbians (?)…there’s a whole group of teachers in the city in a hell of alot more dnager than some of our soldiers are!

By OldSchool

April 24, 2006 01:43 PM | Link to this

My students will be scrambling to complete any outstanding projects: house plans, technical drawings, live work, etc. My beginners have some study sheets to help them prepare for their comprehensive finals and the advanced students have their notes and handouts to study. I don’t review for finals as we “talk technical” all term and they should be fluent in both the vocab and skills.

By Jeff

April 24, 2006 02:02 PM | Link to this

offtopic, but pertaining (tech issue): I’ve refreshed this page several times in the past couple of hours, and I know there are other comments, but the last I see is oldschool’s 12:14… any clue as to what’s happening?

By V for Vendetta

April 24, 2006 02:18 PM | Link to this

My end of the year plans are very similar to Teacher2’s. My problem with the tests is; how does that make sense? If the CRCT’s or EOCT’s are supposed to be a comprehensive test over everything you have learned, why are they so early? Yes, yes, I know it is so that they can be graded in time, but do you see my point? In English, it is not too terribly difficult to find something to do for the rest of the year, but what about more absolute subjects like Math and Science?

If you have to impart all of this knowledge to your math students so that they can pass the test, then what do you do with them once the tests are over? Watch videos? Waste time? Many teachers would say emphatically “no!”, but there are many who get out their Blockbuster card. How is this helping education? And what was wrong with the old system? And why are the tests so darn easy? Seems that the “answer” the State has come up with provides more questions than solutions.

By another teacher

April 25, 2006 10:29 AM | Link to this

Slightly off topic, but I just wanted to rant a little… I teach high school, and our EOCTs are this week. Students were told to bring pencils. However, if they chose not to, it was pretty much told that we had to provide them. Not the school, us personally. Since when is it my responsibility to provide school supplies for 180 students? One colleague actually went out and bought 35 calculators.

Where is the personal responsibility? These are college prep high school students.

OK, rant over.

By oldteacher

April 25, 2006 10:42 AM | Link to this

Oh, anotherteacher, do I understand your problem. I was actually written up once when a student didn’t have a pencil and I didn’t have one to give him. It is amazing to me that I have students who expect me to supply pencils and paper and whatever they need for not only my class, but others.

By another teacher

April 25, 2006 12:24 PM | Link to this

old teacher: That’s ridiculous. What has happened to personal responsibility?

By Jeff

April 25, 2006 12:28 PM | Link to this

anotherteacher:

quite simply, in terms of today’s students: it no longer exists. Those of us who fight to reinstate it (in the metro area at least) are doomed. I should be moving to South GA next year, we’ll see how the fight there goes!

By jim d

April 25, 2006 12:46 PM | Link to this

So what a few (not all) of you are actually saying is that it will now become time for “busy work”?

I guess this is part of my problem with testing happening this far out from the end of the year. Why not go ahead and shorten the year and start later in the fall? Let’s just be brutally frank here, the kids aren’t really going to anything they don’t care to for the rest of the year anyway.

By luvs2teach

April 25, 2006 04:37 PM | Link to this

Actually, Jim, for me it’s just the opposite of busy work - these are the longer-term, in-depth projects that we don’t have time for in our rush to cover as much of the curriculum as possible prior to the CRCT!

The kids don’t know it, but they are working harder now than they have all year - they’re just having fun doing it! I had one student ask me yesterday why all his classes couldn’t go by that quickly - he was doing library research, of all things.

By special ed teacher

April 25, 2006 05:04 PM | Link to this

That question’s a joke right? The school I work in is by the book, 100% of the time. We walk the line and do not deviate. We are teaching the curriculum, period.