I taught two composition classes this week for a teacher who is ill. I'm not familiar with the teacher's normal practices, so I was somewhat stressed preparing for the class. Their assignment for Tuesday was to bring their homework and two historical artifacts, and the assignment for Thursday was to read.
There were several surprises in store for me, but the biggest was that this class rarely uses small groups. Most of their classes are large-group discussion.
I depend upon small groups, especially in composition class. They enable participation from a wider range of students, they teach teamwork, and they help students make personal connections--which to me is just as important as the first two reasons.
Based upon this and a few other discoveries, I suspect that the students are not producing high-quality work. They aren't preparing well for class, they don't know to read the syllabus, they're confused about the assignment, and they don't know each other.
What I'm really wondering: Is my grade distribution higher than normal because I utilize a wider range of pedagogical approaches?
No comments:
Post a Comment