One of my struggles is goals.
Not coming up with goals (if anything I’ve got too many: see goals, and more goals, and one more for the road) Its not even, really, about carrying them out.
The challenge is DIFFERENT goals in the same classroom. My goal is to help students become confident skilled, self directed learners. Their goal is to pass a high stakes test as quickly as possible.
These aren’t necessarily in conflict, but they certainly aren’t the same, so a class that meets both takes some thought. I’ve written about this before. I’m always looking for new ways to square the circle.
My latest attempt: pre exam wrappers.
Exam wrappers make so much sense to me. Except, I don’t give exams. (yay for ungraded classes!) On the other hand, ETS gives one heck of a summative assessment.
So, my new pre exam wrappers plan: when students do HiSET practice problems (their goal) we follow it up with some reflection (my goal)
I’m asking them about how prepared/confident they felt, which questions are harder or easier for them, what makes those questions harder or easier and what they’ll need to do to feel prepared.
I tried it out for the first time in not quite ideal circumstances: with some of my middle level folks (so students who are a ways from the exam) with not quite enough time left in class.
And some faces started out with expressions that said something like “How would I know?”,… but then they settled in and started to do the thinking.
So, I’m hopeful.
And, also thinking this will be a skill we have to build through repetition. But then, most skills are like that.
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