Teacher Handwriting

A few years back I picked up a book called Write Now, a penmanship program that teaches cursive italic.  I don't have exemplary handwriting, but it's worked and I've even enjoyed compliments on my neat writing.  ...until now.

To show students how to work a density problem, I used an ELMO, an overhead projector, and it really highlighted my handwriting.  The students noticed two things.  First, they observed my fountain pen.  Second, they observed that they couldn't really read my handwriting.  I was happy to talk about the pen, but I was perturbed by the trouble they had to read my handwriting.

So, I'll revert back to my old all-caps handwriting for using an overhead.

Squeezing In Points: Academic Purgatory

Here's a note for Future Dan: better planning reduces student stress.

This week will be a stressful week for the students.  5 Week Grades are due on Thursday, and there is a pressure to finish the unit on evolution before starting the next 5-week session.  The pressure is only coming from a planning calendar loosely based on the effectively defunct California Science Standards.

This week: The Perfect Storm:

1. Tuesday: Quiz on Chapter 17
2. Wednesday: Essay Exam on Unit 5 - Evolution
3. Thursday: Multiple Choice Exam on Unit 5 - Evolution

I am growing increasingly skeptical of the massive unit exam typical of science courses.  The ability to assess the students' higher level learning in an intense examination in 90 minutes seems counter-productive.  Unit exams seems to promote cramming and really hinder long-term understanding.

Unit exams may have their place, but they should be more application, synthesis, or evaluation-type assessments.  

I would like to find or develop a system where there's a capstone assignment for the unit rather than a massive exam.  The capstone project would be supported by better assessments during lesson delivery. All assessments would involve an activity or a section of reading from something that piques students' interests. 

Better planning before a unit built on better assessment types can avoid cramming and the test anxiety common with antique testing methods.  Sadly, these methods are perpetuated by the always dangerous mindset of "that's always the way we've done it."

Happy National Handwriting Day!

After spending no small number of hours grading hand-written work the past few days, I have never been more convinced that handwriting is an essential part of one's education.  

We're in a transitional period between the Palmer Method and the Qwerty Method of writing, at least in education, and it's tough on both teachers and students.  Students struggle to write stuff down, edit their work, and the process of re-writing is tedious.  Teachers have to check this work, and decoding handwriting adds time to grading marathons.  Until students have access to netbooks, or the culture changes so that students can bring their own note-taking devices, we'll be stuck in this cycle of tedious writing, rewriting, and deciphering.

There are great ways to improve handwriting.  I have enjoyed the book Write Now by Barbara Getty, an easy to follow method of learning cursive italic.  Those who really want to spruce up their writing can check out the IAMPETH website.  This is -really- cool.  Beautiful script everywhere!

So, join me, Mr. Spencer, and tens of other stylophiles today as we celebrate National Handwriting Day!

First Grade - 190 Papers!

I graded my first batch of papers!  While students were working on a lab, I graded their assignments.

There were two parts of the assignment.  The first part was a paragraph on five of the major contributors to the thoughts of Charles Darwin.  In each paragraph, I was looking for the name of the scientist, the contribution to science in general, and the specific influence the scientist had on Charles Darwin.  The second part was 10 vocabulary word definitions; this part was credit/no credit.

I took a look at each paragraph and made sure the student had what I was looking for.  It took about 5-6 assignments before I began to get an eye for it and grading got a lot faster.  Eventually, each paper took about 15-20 seconds and I was able to get through each period's work before the bell rang.  The grading time investment seemed to fit the scope of the assignment; 15 seconds didn't seem like a fair amount of time until I thought about the importance and purpose of the assignment.

Assignment Purpose: Independent Practice
Assessment: Low Assessment Value
Literacy Level: Low - Looking for specific pieces of information; less stress on paragraph structure and syntax.  Made marks on several papers with egregious errors but these didn't impact grades.

The only issues I had was with students who simply didn't do the work.  I spoke to each of these students and it was more that the student didn't want to do the work than forgetting to do the work.  This was rather disappointing but not surprising.

I also got to use my new Stipula Calamo Red fountain pen ink I got for Christmas.  It looks sharp!  An "A" looks particularly nice on lined paper.

Also, my Master Teacher is back!  She's not 100%, but I'm glad she's on the mend.