Exams Over...Phew!

Well…exam week is over. Exams went fairly well from what is already graded. Only a couple students failed in each subject. I have all the test administering procedures down pat now…clearing tables (desks) except for a pencil and eraser, being quiet during an exam, raising hands for questions, reading through instructions with students at the start, and announcing how much time has passed/how much time they have left. The exams made for a lot of grading this week! Miss Monica and I split the grading work. She told me that if I’d grade the compositions (all 55 of them, and all at least one page long), she’d do the others (since they’re mostly multiple choice, fill in the blank, etc.) The compositions took so much time to grade, and I still have some to finish this weekend. I’m trying to leave helpful comments for the students so that they can learn from their mistakes, and that’s taking a little longer to do. Next week, the students will be correcting their exams as homework. This is part of Miss Monica’s routine, since she said the students will not check the mistakes they made otherwise. This is probably true for many of them, so I think this is a good idea.

The reviews I did for the exams went well. I didn’t have a chance to include many of the games or fun ideas I had other than the grammar matching at the start of the week, but I at least tried to make the review guides interactive. For math, we went through the whole review guide as a class. I asked students to explain how to do problems and provide answers as we went along. I tried to keep an eye out for students that had dazed looks or were tuning out, so that I could draw them back into the class. Sometimes I called on them to ask them to help out on a problem or make sure to check for their understanding. This seemed to help. I also left plenty of time for questions and was really happy when students asked for more explanations. Near the end, I had students write problems on the board, and then the rest of the class raised their hand afterward if they agreed or disagreed with the answer. When they disagreed, I had them come up to change it. Throughout the review, I tried to acknowledge all of the answers and consider them even if they were wrong. Usually, if a student was wrong, I asked them to think again and correct their answer. This seemed to lead to better student understanding. I also tried to make sure everyone was participating by asking for new volunteers and having them work out a problem and raise their hand when they had an answer. I guess I’ll see if this review paid off when the grades are all calculated on Tuesday!

Overall in my student teaching experience here, I’ve found that I really do love teaching. I love those light bulb moments when something clicks for a student and times when the students are really excited to participate and all have their hands raised. I’m also finding ways to have fun and not take my teaching too seriously. For instance, when I make little mistakes in front of the students, I try to make light of it. I’ve also found ways to act just a little bit goofy in front of the students (like saying the spelling word “groan” as if I’m groaning…they always laugh when I do that). Sometimes, some of the students look at me funny to try to get me to laugh while I’m giving spelling words, so I just make goofy faces back at them. These little things make class just a bit more fun I think. I think the students know that I can handle a joke…because on Thursday, I had the first trick played on me!!! A student pulled out a pen and asked me to write my full name for her. Well, it was one of those clicky pens that shocks your hand when you try to click it before writing…haha. After trying it twice, I just looked at the student and shook my head with a smile. She got me. I went right back to teaching, and I think only a few students that had plotted the trick noticed what happened.

I think I have found a good balance between a little bit of goofiness and being authoritative. The students know that I can laugh, but I won’t let them get away with things. I can walk closer to them or stare them down with my stern teacher look for a few seconds, and when they notice me, they usually snap right back to work. They know that when I mean business, I mean business. I’ve already removed things from students when they’re coloring in class instead of reading along or paying attention, and I think they realize that I’m generally pretty fair. I think they respect me overall, which I’m really happy about.

I’ll close for now with some fun cultural bits:
---St. Patrick’s Day is not celebrated in Mexico (probably because there’s so few Irish people). We celebrate it at Varmond, because the principal is part Irish. (My coop. teacher thought it was so interesting when I told her about some of the ways it’s celebrated in the States…with the green river in Chicago, green drinks, and Shamrock Shakes at McDonald’s.)
---Flour tortillas are kind of rare here (even though that’s basically the only kind we have in the U.S.) Corn tortillas is the norm here (rare in the U.S.)
---The chocolate used in sweets (donuts, muffins, etc.) here is a lot less sweet than what we use in the U.S.