I began this post a few weeks ago on a particularly rough day. Yes, I would have been over-sensationalizing my title. I do enjoy working with freshmen. They're fun. I'm just really frustrated lately and not feeling like I'm meeting their needs.
I started a post earlier which I never finished/published, so maybe I will do that, but I need to vent a little and reflect a lot.
We had been working on lines of fit a few weeks ago in Algebra 1 class. A string of about three days had seemed really unproductive. It didn't seem like something that should be taking days and days of time. These questions are still relevant now, especially after receiving projects that they did. I will explain that part in my next post.
Problems?
1) Ability variation/lack of background knowledge
After the classes changed this semester, I got quite a different mix of students. About half of the composition of one of my Algebra 1 sections is really weak students. I mean really weak. There are also some really high performers, but probably because they took algebra in eighth grade. It helps that they do what they're supposed to and regularly practice outside of class, too.
2) Immaturity
This should be expected; they are only freshmen after all. The lack of focus over those few days was absolutely deplorable. Sometimes they just don't listen. Classic example: we make a big deal of making sure students pick points on their line of best fit, and not necessarily points from the scatter plot. Yet, some students on the test, even after being corrected and reminded numerous times, tried to write the equation of the line through data points that did not lie on their line. (despite all of our efforts through the whole year about connecting different representations, etc.)
Questions:
1) Are my tasks not appropriate? Boring? Making kids feel stupid? Am I destroying a topic that actually has potential to interest and engage students?
Yes, I'm taking some canned data from textbooks and other places. Why the hell would students be interested in some of this data?
Some kids in my class still have no idea of the concept of a variable. They might as well just flip a coin when picking whether to substitute the information in the question for x or for y. And God forbid that x represents something like "Years since 1990." or y is labeled as "thousands of something." Are they not capable of reading the information? Do they just not bother? Do they just not care? And should I really blame them?
If a kid still can't write the equation of a line, if a kid doesn't understand slope, if a kid can't interpret what variables stand for and how to label them or read the labels, if a kid doesn't know the difference between evaluating the expression when the x gets plugged in for and solving for x when the y gets plugged in for, am I denying students entry to the topic/problem?
Am I just doing a terrible job of engaging students?
But, these skills are important. And some of these prerequisite skills are things they should have already learned. I don't teach in a vacuum, so I have to teach these things. (At least, that's the way I feel.)
2) Am I not scaffolding or differentiating enough?
But what I've seen some people refer to as "scaffolding" is really doing the thinking for the kids. It probably means I need to work at developing this more, but there's things about differentiation that are just as bad as not differentiating at all.
Plus, a lot of the time, I've found that attempts at differentiating/scaffolding just confuse the kids more. They don't know what they're supposed to do, and it's a lot of wasted effort.
3) Why am I worrying?
The other side of me tells me to stop over-thinking it, and that these kids just need to deal with it. How are they going to function in life? They get a lot of coddling here that they are not going to have in the future. Some things in life you just have to do because you have to do it. Life is not going to pander to your interests. I love teaching, but there are parts of the job that I really do not enjoy. Yet, I do them because I am supposed to, and because I value the parts of the job that I like, I do the best I can to do those parts well.
Part 2 - Why did I blow it? (coming soon)
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