P What?

Well, apologies for no updates this week. It was a busy one. Lessons are in full swing, kids have been out sich, I missed Wednesday due to an illness, and new units have begun.

On Monday I gave the first English test based on the content that I taught. I was thrilled to see that most everyone scored high on the test. Of course there were a few students who got a few non-brain-busters wrong,  but all in all they did good. I wondered if I had simply made the test too easy, but it covered all the objectives I had throughout the unit and many of them were application questions. Because I was struggling a bit to teach English at first due to the language differences between my kids, I started just really focusing on the two or three main content objectives I had for each lesson. Then I have been including as much verbal and social practice as possible. This has helped and many small reflective efforts have helped me to adjust and teach them a thing or two. Keep it up P4! I will try and do the same.

I have been pumped for math. I have never taught decimals before and this is my first official unit that I have designed myself and am teaching (Numeration and Place Value). It will take about another week to a week and a half. I feel the introduction to place value has gone really well so far! I am working with manipulatives , numberlines, models,  and plenty of examples in an effort to try and promote a conceptual understanding of place value and its application. I hope it continues going well. Most everyone seems to be keeping up based on their practice assessments, and I have been individually checking in with everyone as much as possible. Tomorrow’s lesson will be about whole numbers and decimals, so I hope the whole class is there and ready to learn!

Distance Example with Unifix Cubes for Teaching about Decimals

School in general has been going great. The staff is welcoming, they care for the students, and I feel like my class has really adjusted to me teaching them daily. The routines are getting easier I think because they are learning more of what I expect and how I teach. One thing that drove me crazy my first few weeks is that when I would ask a question I would just receive blank stares, waiting for me to give the answer or call on the one person with their hand up. I have told them from the start that I expect everyone who can answer questions and provide input on something to volunteer their input, or at least be prepared to. Class participation has dramatically increased from the students. When I ask questions more people volunteer. If they don’t and I urge them to, many hands go up. Even group work was a challenge at first. But, now when I tell them to talk with their neighbor about something there is actually chatter!

One accomplishment that I was extremely proud of took place during my English lesson on Thursday. I was teaching about three different ways to ask questions about likes and dislikes, and the appropriate responses to them. I wanted every single student in the class to have practice saying each question and responding to each question multiple times. So I prepared a notecard for each student. Each notecard had one of the three questions on it. The idea was that each student would get a card. They would make an inner circle of students (student A), and each one of them would face a student from the outer circle (student B). On my command, student A would ask student B the question they had to read and student B would respond. Then Student B would ask student A the questions on their card and Student A would respond. Stop, rotate the outer circle one person to the right, and do it again. A third of the way around we would switch our question with the person who was across from us. This would make it possible for everyone to be asking and answering the questions in a way other then call and response.

 So at first it was a disaster. No one understood my directions, and on top of it they did not fully seem to want to participate. Nevertheless, I really wanted this to work because I felt it would be a good social activity we could continue to use for practicing our English. I re-explained how to do it while being much more conscious of my own language. I gave them an attention getter (P what? P4!), modeled how to interact with their partner, and took the first few rounds slowly. After that we had an inner circle and an outer circle that were almost perfectly in tune to the expectations. It was great! The P4 students were not accustomed to doing these types of activities, so it took a little extra push. But we got it! That was just a small accomplishment that is hard to appreciate unless you were there, or have had a similar experience.

Oh one more cool thing. The school had an election on Friday for student positions. They had an assembly and introduced the candidates who gave a speech about why they were the right choice for their position. They then had a lengthy election with ballots and everything! It was fun watching the democratic process at Rwentutu! It was also a great learning experience for all the students that were involved. I love how serious the voting process was, and I am excited to learn who won the positions!

Democracy at its Finest! Student Getting a Ballot from Teacher Jockness

So things are good. My students and I are getting to know each other more, which makes class time much more efficient and valuable. I am really enjoying teaching here at Rwentutu and it is sad that I will be leaving in a little over a month. It seems like I will be going just as significant progress is being made, and I know exactly what my students need. We are making progress though, so I am thankful for that. I will shoot for an early update on things this week. Talk to you soon!