Last Thursday, I taught 3 algebra II lessons which my cooperating teacher planned. It was basically a review of a section on complex numbers and the quadratic equation. It was nothing special. Half the lesson was showing examples on the board and the other half was a worksheet. The only criticism I received was that I talk to the board too much, meaning, I should be talking to the class while looking for confusion or disruptions. It’s an interesting criticism considering that while I teach I consciously think about looking at the class. It is interesting when you think about the things you do subconsciously that undermine the things you try to do consciously. This makes me wonder about my voice inflection. I try not to have a pattern or a habit with my voice. I always try to be loud and sometimes a little crazy. But I may have an inflection pattern or, dare I say, a repetition word.
On Monday, I developed a lesson and taught 4 algebra II classes. It was a review for the practice PSSA quiz on Tuesday. I tried to set it up in three parts. I used the first 15 minutes to model how to complete the problems. Then I gave them a practice quiz which they were to complete by themselves in 15 minutes. For the remainder of the period, I had them pair up and check their answers while completing on quiz with both names of the partners. There were many problems, the main being that a large number of students have absolutely no motivation to do quality work. Even though I model how to solve each problem on the board, they refuse to write very many steps down. Many asked questions when not understanding but an alarming number of them refuse to even ask for help.
Another issue is a procedural one. I said they could work in pairs but I knew that it wouldn’t work like I wanted it to. I say it was a procedural problem because the cooperating teacher did not establish it at the beginning. If I were to have assigned partners there would have been a problem. If I were to have said, “turn to your left…” there would have been a problem. They ended up working with many people and most people turned in their own quiz. I could have either concentrated on making sure people were working correctly or help with questions. I don’t know how to make this any better for upcoming lessons.
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My philosophy teacher Doug Huff used to call in-class group work ‘sharing ignorance.’ In my high school chemistry class, it seems like we were sharing less. If partnering were to work back in that class, I would have had to have some very smart and very patient peers. I think your class might need tutors more than peers. Accomplished and nurturing help. Other students might not offer this much. High school has social pressures with anything you do. To admit you studied hard - understand something the rest of the class is calling strange or dumb or whatever – sets you apart from the rest. It makes you an outcast, which feels bad (whether it actually is or not). I imagine that most of the time spent in pairs revolves around acceptance, then positive relating to each other, then perhaps some math. The social obstacles come before the intellectual ones. And in high school, those are many.
We talked about this in person but I wanted to include some highlights. I completely disagree with your teacher's idea of "sharing ignorance." Research shows that students retain more information from peers than any other form of instruction. Given that, you do mention a significant obstacle to cooperative learning, social barriers. Many students are not the curious and do not aspire to be intelligent. Watching this weird dynamic in class makes me think about how my students perceive what they understand to be intelligence among peers in their social group. Hmm....this is worth a blog entry. Stay tuned...
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