Trial and Error

Every weekday morning now I am observing a high school economics class for my secondary methods course. I'm pleased to report that I am being given the opportunity to practice teaching various concepts to the students. They are my guinea pigs, ha ha.

And, believe me, the experimentation is ongoing! Over the last couple of weeks, I've tried out several different techniques to attempt to find the ways that work best for me. I've had minor successes, but today's activity was a colossal failure!

On Friday, I had given the students a worksheet to complete in order to provide them with additional practice on predicting shifts in supply and demand. I guess they were terrified that they might not get it finished and would have to do it as homework over the weekend, so they all rushed through it.

I don't think I've ever seen such sorry schoolwork. I was incredibly disappointed when I graded their work over the weekend. They had seemed to know it so well in class...

Anyway, this morning I went in with a plan. A number of seasoned veteran teachers had advised me to provide opportunities for students to teach one another. So, my plan was to pair up the students in such a way that each pair contained one student who answered the question on the worksheet correctly and one who did not. Then, I called each pair up to the board to graph their answer and explain it to the class. In my head, I envisioned having the student who answered correctly walk the one who didn't though the process, so that it would be a learning experience for both...

The problem is that I didn't specifically state who I wanted to actually DO the work on the board, because I didn't want to embarrass the students who didn't answer correctly. As a result, the students who answered correctly were the ones who graphed the solution AND explained it to the class, while the other students in each pair simply stood to the side, and probably learned nothing.

I felt like a moron, but at least I leaned from this. Next time, I will have ONE student at the board, and instruct the class to decide if they agree or disagree with their answer and state why or why not. Or, maybe I can have the students work in pairs at their desks, and that way I can privately speak to each pair and instruct the one who has the concept down pat to coach the other student...

The good news is that I get to go back every day and continue my process of trial and error...