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Friday, November 02, 2012

No Excuses...


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:

Anonymous said...

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!

Anonymous said...

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!?

Unknown said...

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!

Unknown said...

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.

darnod said...

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.