Kermit Flail

How I feel on most days. :/

Life has been hectic. I am almost well again. I still have a cough and my sinuses are still bothering me a bit. I'm kind of sad because I can't sing in my normal range. I'm basically stuck as a tenor right now so that means no singing in the choir until my vocal chords heal.

I guess the biggest news I have is that my students took their first unit test . . . and it was awful. My overall average was 58%. That includes the student who made a 0 (yes, he filled in the entire multiple choice test and made a 0), the student who answered only one question out of 15, and the students who obviously filled in random bubbles or all C. On the bright side, the school-wide average when you take out my students was about 68% so my guys are not terribly far behind. What really bothers me is that we offer test corrections. The students had about 25 minutes on Wednesday to work on corrections and otherwise they had to come in after school. I made it very clear that Friday was the absolute last day for corrections (except those who have been absent). I had just over 1/3 of my students do the corrections. The test corrections walk you through what to do! They can use notes, calculators, and ask me questions while they work on it! There was no reason anyone should 1. pass up this opportunity to raise their grade and 2. get below a 50 on the test after corrections.

I am up-to-date on all of my grading so tomorrow I'm going to make calls home to all of my students who have below a 60 in my class. If I have time, I will also call those that have a 60-75 since that is failing (but close to passing) or borderline. I'm too ashamed to tell you how many phone calls I will need to make.

I need to update y'all on the retaining wall but it's a mess as well. The short story is that it looks like we will be taking our contractor to court for theft. We paid him for some jobs that he never did and now he refuses to do. The good news is that we are very good about keeping a "nest egg" so if we lose that money it will hurt but we will be able to make it.

Let's end on a positive note: I started to flip my classroom on Friday. Most of my students said that they liked video notes better than me lecturing because they can go at their own pace. I had one student complain that I talk too much in the videos. I pointed out that the videos are less than 15 minutes long. When I lecture, it's 20-25 minutes so I'm actually talking less in the videos. Another student said he didn't like the videos because then he couldn't ask questions. I pointed out that it's easier to ask questions because now he doesn't have to feel like he is stopping the whole class. Plus, I now have more class time to answer those questions in detail. Basically, for every "hater" I was able to explain why flipped learning was better. Here's hoping it's a success! :D

-Clare G. S.