My kids are wrapping up their travel brochures/booklets on Central and South America. I am amazed, nay dumbfounded, by the number of questions I get that could easily be answered if only the kids would look at their rubric. (Ok, Ok, Dr. Gibson, I just know that you'll have something to say about that. :o ) Don't get me wrong, a lot of my kids are producing some beautiful work, are learning, and have asked to do it again because it is fun. However, my problem is my collaborative class with approximately 16 kids with IEP's. It is as if they have not listened to any of the instructions, and do not have any motivation to produce good work. (Note: I do not have a SPED teacher in this class to collab with me, just an instructional assistant.) I went to another teacher, and her advice/comment was that they were too used to people giving them the answers. I think this is true, and I had this frustration with my 6th graders last year. I, and others, call it learned helplessness.
How do I get kids to really dig in, and go for broke on this thing. For the life of me, I cannot think of anything different I have done with any of my classes when it came to introducing this material, explaining my expectations, etc. Yet, I get such different results from this one class as opposed to my other classes.
My use of Power Teaching seems to be going well. There is a slight disturbance in the force in that some of my problem children are starting to rear their heads again. I am just trying to combine what I have learned from Biffle and L&L: reinforce positively what the desired expectation is and offer a choice. We'll see how it goes.
I think that some of my kids can tell that I am ratcheting things up a notch, not only in my expectations for classroom behavior, but in my academic expectations as well. Maybe it is that they are a more mature, they grow SO fast at this age. Maybe it is both. With their growth as students, and my growth as a teacher, it might be hard to tell!