Friday, October 06, 2006

My class update

My teaching is going well, at least on the instruction end. I feel in control of my lessons, grading and computer time.
My concern is that some of the students don't seem very motivated. I think that I am giving good lessons which involve them, but they don' t do the homework and don't study for the quizzes. Their averages are terrible. Several of them come late and leave early (not necessarily the same ones) I am keeping track of this, and it will affect their grades. This week I gave them a blank weekly schedule which lists the day hour by hour. My hope is that they will be able to carve out one hour a day to study for this class. Our textbook stated that a person needs to study 2 hours for each hour spent in class. My class is a four hour class--thus 8 eight hours a week is needed for study. I wish I had known this when I was in college. I will settle for one hour a day--7 hours a week.
I am thinking of giving them a midterm progress report, listing their quiz average, their attendance, their homework average and their computer average. This seems very junior high to me, but I think some of them need to see the consequences of their actions. I don't think that they realize the consequences of failing this class--having to repeat it, and not being able to take any higher level classes. I think that part of the problem is that several of them have not ever been sucessful at school, and suffer from a lack of study skills. College is late to be learning these lessons, but it can be done. Another factor is immaturity. I don't think that many of them see the long term goal at all. But after all of this, I still like the job and think that I can make a difference in their lives.

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