InstaDigest: Oct 2 - Oct 13
The one where I give my first reading quizzes in 15 years.
Real talk: this week, I gave two reading quizzes. The first two reading quizzes I’ve given in 15 years.
Yep. It’s been that kind of week.
This is something I struggle with often: in an effort to be interactive and constructivist and hands-on and interesting, I wonder how much students are learning and thinking and productively struggling individually.
This week, my 8th graders were strongly “meh”. They were going through the motions during class activities, but it was clear that they were not thinking deeply, were not wrestling with the reading. They were doing the thing and also NOT doing the thing.
Do you know what I mean?
So, I gave reading quizzes. (Which instantly reminded me of all the flaws and shortcomings of reading quizzes.) And we did individual, seat-bound, graded assignments.
I explained to them that this wasn’t punishment (even though it felt like it), but it was my attempt to figure out how to help them learn better. At the end of the week, I gave them a survey asking for their reflections and feedback about what we all need and how we want class to feel.
Here’s what I learned:
Their narrative feedback is much the same: I don’t like reading quizzes. I pay more attention when we have reading quizzes. I hope we don’t have any more reading quizzes. I understand the book better when I work alone.
So, as I sit here writing this on Friday, I’m a little bit at a loss. Clearly the solution is some kind of combination of both approaches because they clearly need external motivation (in the form of grades), which I hate. So much. Stay tuned for what I figure out.
Here’s what we’ve done the last two weeks: