*sigh*I'm taking a break! Since 8:00 this morning, I have been in 'teacher-mode.' First on the agenda was to grade a student's Pre-Calculus test (that he took on THURSDAY!) I felt extremely, extremely "BAD" when he came to see me on Friday, wondering how his test went. This is a bright student and will "make it far in life," so I really felt I let him down by not doing my job in an adequate, timely manner.
Next on the agenda, analyze/grade/edit/improve on the Pre-Calculus Math History Research Project papers. Thankfully, there are only 11 students on my roster. Sadly, only SIX turned in a rough draft Friday---NOT GOOD for the other five. I spent right around 20-30 minutes with each paper; checking Internet sources, checking for plagarism, etc. I am insisting on APA Citing format (rather than MLA, which the English dept uses). So I have found myself giving many examples of how to properly cite using APA format, rather than MLA. I think I may have to take 20-30 minutes of classtime tomorrow discussing this and giving examples. The final draft is due on Friday. Another sad issue---for one of my students, unless he does some drastic rewriting, his paper will receive a zero and he will need to be reported to the administration for 100% complete plagarism. OH DEAR! Seriously-----90% of his paper is WORD FOR WORD from Wikipedia. Oh golly! Wikipedia of all places!!!!
So, I think that brought me right to 11:00. THEN, the next item on my agenda was to fill out and write an application reference letter for one of my "girls" to MIT!. Words CANNOT express how special this lil'lady is! She was one of my vball girls the last year I coached---she was a freshman. I've had her in Algebra (8th grade) and Pre-calculus last year. SERIOUSLY---this is a student that doesn't come along very often! I AM NOT an elloquent writer, so I have spent that last THREE HOURS drafting and redrafting her reference/application letter. I want it to WOW anyone who reads it so they really know what this girl is like! What a gem!!!!
Okay-----now off to some QUICK lesson planning for this week so I can hopefully get downstairs within the hour.
Thankfully, DH took the girls shopping with him-----between making breakfast and lunch, I was getting delayed with all my agenda items. So now I should be able to fly without the lil' distractions :0)
That's one aspect of teaching I don't miss, the amount of off-duty time I used to spend on marking and preparation. I used to reckon on spending about 4 hours each weekend planning for the following week, as well as a couple of hours each evening on marking. With a class of 32 average, you can imagine how long the marking took. But it's so important to do it properly isn't it, pointless otherwise.
ReplyDeleteOh dear, your school update is making me feel very guilty about not getting anything school related done this weekend. I dutifully brought home stacks of grading and took them back this morning still undone. You have inspired me to get my act in in gear.
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