ok, new focus....
I have 2 sixth grade classes and 3 eighth grade classes. I can tell you that the sixth graders are great, but much lower than I would have thought... But they are great kids and mostly willing to work at things.
I need to focus on remediation. I need to differentiate heavily. I need to make sure no time is wasted as we can ill afford it.
I wish I could say addition was a given, but I am dealing with the students and deficiencies I am given, so we started skip-counting this week. The goal is to practice mental math and repeated addition is a good preparation for multiplication facts. Here are the details. Skip-counting means that students add the same number over and over. For example, I tell a student 3. He repeats it back to me. Th next student says 6, then 9, 12 etc. I switch when we reach number times 12. This week was 2-5, next will be 3,4 & 6,7.
Yet my goals are the 6th grade standards that we all know we will be, eventually, assessed is what I am required to teach
Mistakes happen and students are encouraged to try again. I am discouraging the culture of smirking and giggling at and correcting (sadly sometimes wrong as well) of each other. It's a daily battle, but progress is being made. How can one get students confident enough without making such reactions inappropriate? This is a situation which must be addressed.
How do you deal with deficiencies and social skills such as these?
Feel free to respond to this question in the comments...
Next time, evaluation and remediation.
