takin' 5

I always feel accomplished when I get through a Monday. Today marks the beginning of the true count down to the end of the semester, and I don't think my 3rd years will be to the point that I'd hoped they'd be. There are some big-picture things that aren't coming together, and I hate to sound like Debbie Downer, but I don't know if they can or will with this group of kids. It's not that they aren't great and capable and intelligent, it's just the fact that there are some big holes in their comprehension of major concepts, and the 3 day a week schedule doesn't really allow us the time to make sure that they always learn to use things as well as I'd like them to. Truly, no matter how much I like the personalities of this group of kids, there's quite a bit to be desired with their work ethic. There are times that 1/2 a class will do their homework! I'm about to re-do my HW "routine"; I think I'm going to up the points I give for each assignment, and I'm going to make homework corrections an additional assignment. Maybe I have it all wrong tho; they're already not motivated to do the HW, so maybe points won't be much of a motivator for them. An additional component to the assignment is probably asking for trouble. They probably won't do this part either. I think I need to do some reading of inspirational teacher stories about how they motivate students. To quote Harry Wong, "school is not FUN", but I DO have to make it interesting and personally meaningful for them to have some buy in, but I'm not going to bust out candy and silly uncontextualized board races to get them into the material.