I am about to unveil one of the most embarrassing things any teacher can show to the world. (No, not that. I have my own non-Kardashian and SFW way to break the internet, you disgusting people....)
Last week we had our 5th and 6th snow day of the school year. The previous Friday, I had given a test study guide and pledged to my students they would take a unit test two days after we resumed school. So on Wednesday I made myself available over 30 minutes for topic review, specific questions, etc. Then on Thursday I gave a test of about 20 closed-ended questions (multiple-choice, matching, ordering) about the Articles of Confederation and US Constitution.
You can see the ugly results below. The overall average score is about 70%!! I felt like an accomplice to a crime, or worse. Some students failed because they had not been preparing well all unit long -- no surprises there. But when over a dozen students had aced all the video quizzes and they still earned scores like 77% or 68% ... something's really wrong. As I graded tests on the last day before February Vacation, the Kubler-Ross stages of grief/depression began to wash over me....
"No, it can't be this bad!" -- "Maybe this was just my weakest class, or it was first period...."
"Dammit, what's wrong with them?!" -- "I'm a horrible teacher!!"
"If only I give them a chance for test corrections" -- "If I had tried a little more on Wednesday"
"Oh god this was a terrible idea and I'm full of terrible ideas and the world is terrible and ..."
Last week we had our 5th and 6th snow day of the school year. The previous Friday, I had given a test study guide and pledged to my students they would take a unit test two days after we resumed school. So on Wednesday I made myself available over 30 minutes for topic review, specific questions, etc. Then on Thursday I gave a test of about 20 closed-ended questions (multiple-choice, matching, ordering) about the Articles of Confederation and US Constitution.
You can see the ugly results below. The overall average score is about 70%!! I felt like an accomplice to a crime, or worse. Some students failed because they had not been preparing well all unit long -- no surprises there. But when over a dozen students had aced all the video quizzes and they still earned scores like 77% or 68% ... something's really wrong. As I graded tests on the last day before February Vacation, the Kubler-Ross stages of grief/depression began to wash over me....
"No, it can't be this bad!" -- "Maybe this was just my weakest class, or it was first period...."
"Dammit, what's wrong with them?!" -- "I'm a horrible teacher!!"
"If only I give them a chance for test corrections" -- "If I had tried a little more on Wednesday"
"Oh god this was a terrible idea and I'm full of terrible ideas and the world is terrible and ..."
Now (5 days later) I am finally at the stage of acceptance.
Flipping with videos is not a cure-all. I was foolish to believe that, even with two 'bonus' days home from school, a grand majority of my students could independently teach themselves with online videos. Flipping is about what you can do in the classroom; it's not just about the videos. I needed to relearn my own lesson. Several of the topics on this test (federalism, checks-and-balances, powers of the president) I had not addressed or explored in the classroom, because of the snow days. About 20 students never took a re-quiz about those topics and/or the earlier assessment about compromises in the Constitution: the Three-Fifths, Great Compromise, etc. So basically I already knew they needed intervention/re-teaching on those topics.
There is a grand lesson here that I can't articulate right now. Can you help me in the comments?
Flipping with videos is not a cure-all. I was foolish to believe that, even with two 'bonus' days home from school, a grand majority of my students could independently teach themselves with online videos. Flipping is about what you can do in the classroom; it's not just about the videos. I needed to relearn my own lesson. Several of the topics on this test (federalism, checks-and-balances, powers of the president) I had not addressed or explored in the classroom, because of the snow days. About 20 students never took a re-quiz about those topics and/or the earlier assessment about compromises in the Constitution: the Three-Fifths, Great Compromise, etc. So basically I already knew they needed intervention/re-teaching on those topics.
There is a grand lesson here that I can't articulate right now. Can you help me in the comments?
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