Day 8: 3/19/12

(I knew I wouldn't keep current with these!  that's why I keep a written journal!)

The morning was spent working on a pre-test of the EOGs.  It lets teachers, students, and parents know what each individual student needs to work on in preparation of the EOGs.  I can understand why the schools would want to do this, but the amount of time and money spent could be spent in better places.

Marion had 7 students to test (6th graders in Language Arts), while Lizzy only had one (also 6th grade LA).  They were in the media center because they had modifications for alternate settings, extended time, and in Lizzy's student's case read-aloud for all instructions.  Two other elective teachers also were assigned to test in the media center which made for tight quarters.

It was interesting to see this from an observers position.  I had given these types of tests before, but never just sat and watched what goes on for these types of tests.  Students had to be kept independent, but reminding them about the time remaining.  We couldn't not watch them completely but we didn't want to hover.  We spent most of the time shelf reading while keeping an eye on the students.

Later I helped Marion work on a lesson plan on poetry for 8th grade language arts classes.  We enjoy creating lessons together and work well with different ideas and technologies. 






I had a chance to work with some of the students as well.  I helped one to find a book on origami that he would enjoy.  Student volunteers created posters for the book fair.  This was interesting to watch, because often they would make mistakes, so time saved on having them do the work, was turned into time spent fixing the errors. 

Lastly we had a book display on women for March, but there weren't many books circulating from it.  I suggested a "March Madness" theme, and Lizzy and I pulled a number of books on basket ball.  Non-fiction, biographies, and even fiction books were included.  By the end of the day students were already checking books out!  I was so excited!

The overall lesson for the day was that you never know what you will get.  We didn't know other teachers would be giving tests with us.  Students can make mistakes that we need to spend time fixing, or have other students fix.  And you never know what type of book display works, and what doesn't.