another one done
I just completed another probability assignment. Not much to say about it but I don't understand this material with any kind of real understanding. Other classes going well though, for now. I've fallen into a routine here and it is less than exciting each day. Hence the lack of blogging; contrary to my anticipations. I was home last weekend. I got home on Friday night and went for a long walk around Hillsboro. The trees were beginning to change color already in H-boro--they are just now doing so here in Lawrence. As I was walking I actually managed to write a few lines of verse, which I will not be copying down here.
As far as teaching is concerned my afternoon class has become a real drag. Nobody asks questions so I end up getting through the material really quickly, and when I pause for questions or even ask a question right out I usually end up standing there for 30 seconds. When I try to get them to do group work on some problems they just fidget awkwardly like they don't understand what I'm saying. And at that point of the day I have no energy to keep myself going, let alone keep 23 students who don't want to be there interested.
2 Comments:
I completely understand your frustration at not getting your students to do group work. I usually (unless time is a factor) try to get as much pair work as possible. But my students don't understand why I do it, since we go over the material as a class. One of my students had the audacity (sp?)to say yesterday: why are we doing this? It's pointless--let's get on with the answers from you. (I paraphrase, but you get the picture. This came from an older gentleman who sees me as a kid playing dress up at times.) I told them it's good to compare your answers with one another and discuss them rather than just hear me barking at them when they're wrong. My Spainish students understand what I'm going for; the others do not. I suppose it's a culture thing, but it's very frustrating.
Today in my afternoon class I had them work on some problems in class at their desks that were just like the problems in their homework assignment. As it was there were only like a third of the students there, but once I had them work on the problems like two or three of them left. This even after I explained to them that it would be better for them to work on the problems there in class where they can ask me any questions rather than struggle with the problems while their working on them in their rooms. That didn't sink in with some of them. One thing nice though was that the students who where left were a lot more talkative and interesting.
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