Nov.24, 06

When the students arrived at school today, I was surprised that a lot of them came up to me and said, "Ms. Chung! I went on the website!" They looked really excited and animated, which is the best encouragement that a teacher get from students. We can guide students to be involved in certain experience, but we cannot control what each student come out of each lesson. Some of them might find that the greatest part of the lesson and the website is that they can go online with their parents. Some might love the links to online games. Some might develop computer skills because of this opportunity to use the computer. The greatest achievement of the teacher is that the students enjoy it and they are getting the best out of it, in their own ways.

I did a Math assessment with a few students today. Initially, I have created four criterions for my performance-based assessment – “Using a set of data to construct a bar graph”, “Labelling a graph”, “Obtaining information from the graph to show understanding”, and “Communicating ideas of how the graph is read.” However, I found that most of the students seemed confused and uncertain about how to label a graph, so I decided to remove that criteria from my assessment. I also talked with my host teacher about it afterwards, and she agreed that we should teach them again and have them practice labelling a graph. Most students are quite good with constructing a bar graph. I noticed that some of them were careful and precise, while others were quick and efficient. The similarity is that they all seemed to be engaged and occupied with this activity.

When some of them were uncertain of how to go about in making comparative sentences, I guided them. Although we should not be helping them through an assessment, I feel that we need to show them and be clear with our instructions, to make sure that they fully understand the task. Once they knew what exactly I was asking about, they would do it on their own. When students made a mistake, I did not tell them they were wrong. I encouraged them to keep going with what they were doing and complete the task.

I encountered one cute incident today. A girl from my class asked me, "Ms. Chung, what's your name?" I acted silly and answered, "My name is...Ms. Chung!" Then she said, "Nooo! Like...what's your first name?" So I told her that my name is Anita, and she said, "Oh, that's a very preeety name! What's your last name?" And of course, I said, "Chung!"