Assessment

My last full week of student teaching in Uganda is moving right along (I can’t believe that I am even saying something that insinuates this experience will soon cease to be). Next week will be a shortened week because of Easter, and sadly, the following school week will come to an abrupt ending when we leave school on Wednesday, because the following morning we drive to Kampala for our teary eyed departure.

So yes, the week is moving right along. Actually the start of the week was somewhat (in-the-moment) stressful for me. On Monday my P4 class took their unit test for mathematics, and on Tuesday I was still dealing with the residuals. I wrote a poor test, and it took the kids too long to copy it down and complete it. Not to mention there were six kiddos out of class that day. To make matters worse, the problems that were completed were not looking too hot from my end. Then, in English, during our review I realized how badly they needed a review, so I ended up chucking my lesson and reviewing the entire time. Thus, for Tuesday, I had to figure out how to deal with math, and move ahead with English. I had a moment of internal panic that day and tried to figure out where I had failed as a teacher. I came to the conclusion that I had not failed, but I have been slacking on my assessment practices. It can be very frustrating when your vision for how your class will perform on an assessment does not match their actual work. It is so difficult to just move along when half the class still needs to develop their skills in a specific area.

So we did an overall review on Tuesday for math. The students who were absent got a separate test, and the ones who were present were asked to do test corrections. English went fine, and King James actually sat in my class to do a teacher assessment. This was both helpful and interesting because I got the chance to see how the teachers at Rwentutu were assessed. There were many similarities between teacher evaluations I am familiar with, but there were differences too. The lesson was basic—review, a reading/writing session, and a full group synthesis.

The categories for the assessment included: teacher preparation, pupil related records, use of classroom/resources, and general issues. Each category also had subcategories. Each then received a number based on teacher performance. By the end of the assessment the teacher actually gets a score out of 100. I was assessed positive, and the scores I received marks off for were because of issues that were a result of different cultures, or responsibilities I was not aware of. For example, for each subject a teacher is expected to have a scheme of work, which is like a skeleton of lesson plan topics for the term. Obviously, I did not have a scheme of work. Also, teachers should keep a class register of the number of boys and girls present for each class. I did not have that either for the specific class period. His positive comments were related to flow of content, involving learners, tending to individual learners, and my general rapport with the class. Having been assessed based on the Kasese District’s methods of classroom management (having schemes of work and such) my score was 88/100.

I am excited for the next few days of English. I have planned to split the class periods into two—one 35 minute English lesson, and one 25 minute writer’s workshop. So today (Wednesday) was the first day we started this. The class I will be returning to in a few weeks has written letters to my general class here in Uganda. So I have told my students about it and they are excited to write back. For the last 25 minutes today, we did some small group brainstorming about what we would want children from another country to know about us, and what we would want to know about them. Tomorrow we will read the letters and make lists about what we might want to write back. We will do first drafts on Monday, Tuesday we will revise, and Wednesday we will do our final drafts. This is the tentative plan. I can’t wait to see how they turn out!

So there was the mid-week update. In other news:

-My room still smells a bit like a cow with the drum sitting in the corner, but I have gotten over my buyer’s remorse.

-I did a reading intervention with one of my students today in the place of Jess, who was working with another student at the same time. She works so well with individual learners. I think she will do phenomenal work in the field of special education.

-We got our official Rwentutu uniform sweatshirts yesterday. They are pretty sweet but they are also pretty TIGHT. That’s okay though. It will just look more muscular than I already do…..joke.

-We love Chipati