Knowing your students

Assignments, lesson plans and being at school 4 days a week doesn't leave much time for anything else but I did want to share a success I had this week.

One of the classes I have been observing is a Year 11 Maths A class. Basically it's Maths for the students who aren't interested in Maths or want a good grade without having to do much work or have trouble with Maths. So behaviour is a big problem. In the class are 5 students who are doing PVM (Pre-vocational Mathematics) and I have been working with this group and directing them through their work. Two of them are easily capable of the work and generally do a decent amount of work in the lesson. Two of them are daydreamers, one of which will regularly do absolutely nothing during the lesson. The fifth student recently joined the group and not only does no work but wants to chat and joke around and disrupt everyone else. On a good day he might get one question done (lasting all of 2 minutes) and will then muck around for the rest of the lesson.

This week I decided to start incorporating some get-to-know-you activities and other short fun activities to try and encourage them to participate. I used one of the activities we did in one of the Monday tutorials at Uni of having them pair up, interview each other and then tell the rest of the group about the other person. I also got them to do an activity I'd learnt in a Beginning Teachers meeting designed to switch on "both sides of your brain". As well as that I needed to get them to do some revision for a test they will be doing next week.

From what I'd learnt about the students during the get-to-know-you activities, I designed a worksheet that included their names and interests in the questions. At the time I didn't think it would make much difference but it was worth a try. Yesterday I gave them the worksheet and every single one of them completed the whole three pages of questions, including the student who normally disrupts everyone else.

During my first prac so far I have learnt that it does take time to learn about your students and for them to start to trust you, but when you get to that place they are more inclined to listen and participate. Teaching can be hard and extremely frustrating at times but occassionally you have a win and realise you can make a difference.