No excuses for what went wrong
in 6th grade today. It was my fault.
The class was great, the
daily agenda was on the board, the matching lesson plan was clear, the
materials and teachers edition books stacked exactly in the order needed.
I gave out the four part,
three page reading assessment test with some 90 multiple-choice questions that
the lesson plan indicated should take only about 15 minutes to complete before
lunch.
Given the short amount of
time and the number of pages/questions to work through, I had a lingering doubt
that even this intelligent class as a whole could complete it. It turned out
that only a handful actually completed the entire assignment in 15min.
After lunch, I checked the
next item on the lesson plan. It listed a one-page literacy quiz with three
questions to answer.
The allotted time was an
hour!
I had somehow confused the
"reading test" handouts with "literature quiz" handouts.
They were in the right order when I reviewed the lesson plan that morning but
somehow I had switched the handouts. There IS no one else to blame.
When I told the class what I
must have done and it was my fault, some of the kids thought that's what might
have happened but didn't say anything because...I'm the TEACHER!
As I'm passing back the
incomplete assessment tests for additional time to finish, I gently suggested that
THEY know the classroom routine and materials better than I do. It is perfectly
acceptable to question any lesson plan assignment for clarification if it seems
oddly out of the routine.
If someone had, I would have
had less to apologize for.
5 comments:
Thanks for sharing this. I think we all fear of messing up on testing, especially when we have similar tasks in the lesson plan. Don't beat yourself up too much, it is a very easy mistake to make, but you handled it great!
Well you could do what I did once. Skimmed over the instructions & failed to see that 1st period was supposed to write CLASS SET on test. Guess I also ignored the Scantrons on her desk. So they recorded their answers on the test itself and turned it in. Luckily I had ONE extra copy & had to run down & make an extra class set while the next period was sitting there waiting on their test. Yikes. They (10th graders) later told me that it was very unusual for them to be able to write on the test. Gee, why didn't ya speak up!?
As a student becoming a teacher and as a substitute teacher I think we all have made a similar mistake. Funny story, those poor kids were probably trying to fly through the exam. Thanks for sharing!
I am studying to become a teacher and a substitute teacher in the mean time. I believe we all have made a similar mistake when it comes to executing the lesson plan given. Funny story to think about how the kids reacted to only having 15 minutes. Thanks for sharing.
They didn't question it? I want to sub at this school Every time I deviate from something in the slightest I am told about it. Even if the teacher wrote to do that exactly.
But an easy mistake to make. You will be checking everything carefully the next few times lol.
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