I read the article by Dervin, "From the Mind's Eye," and found it relatively interesting. But when I viewed the video, it made so much sense to me. I know that I am guilty of generalizations about people. I did it the other day...We were talking about the disengagement problem among many of our students and I mentioned I would like to interview several families(Latino, mainly) to get some answers. I was called out by a colleague who said that there was not one answer or one solution. Each family has their own issues or viewpoints. It is too simplistic to think that we could solve this problem by listening to a few people's spin. He is right. I thought hard on that comment and then read this article and viewed the video. Last week, we were told we needed to do an exit interview with our 8th graders. There were four questions: 1. What was positive this year at RLS? 2. What was negative this year at RLS? 3 What could we do to help you learn better? 4. What advice would you give to an incoming 8th grader? The questions were broad and the answers were interesting because they reflected very individual experiences, most of which were not terribly helpful..to me. But, upon looking at the answers considering sense-making and who our audience is, there are some useful responses. Ex.:Positives: hanging out with friends at break teachers are nice, at first they seem scary but they are nice when you get to know them you feel really welcomed meeting new people, new friends even at the end of the year projects are so fun, when we do plays, all that stuff is fun; you get to have fun with your friends +seemed to get better as you got older, cuz everyone starting maturing more, not picking on you as much, and it’s more fun when no one is picking on you Ex.: Negatives: -CCSS drives me crazy -new discipline system, didn’t know there was no detention, -having problems seeing eye to eye with some teachers -grading, not promoting because of a long absence (illness) -put in a classes with our friends but then had to sit at separate tables; then we’d get in trouble because we’d look at them and make faces Ex. What could we do to help you learn more? sat individually more kinesthetic learning, more hands on things in science rather than notes, more doing things when I first came here, taught me the math - do a better job transitioning in a new student mid year - I had no idea how to do the math Ex.: What advice to new 8th graders? Don’t let drama get you caught up; it’s really not as bad as everyone says it is make relationships with teachers, really talk to them; take advantage of reassessing; don’t miss out on your work, it can affect you a lot; go in for help if you need it do your work, and if you haven’t started community service, start it at the beginning of the year; pay attention in class; ask the teachers for help; don’t be afraid to ask for an extension; reassess! There are some very interesting comments in there. I kept thinking that we were not asking deep enough questions to get to the core of issues, but 8th graders are pretty basic in their needs and we need to figure out how to give them their needs, while getting them to buy in academically. You notice that they had the least amount of input on how we could help them learn better. The other three questions had many, many answers. The one on learning had four responses. I guess my takeaway on all this is, it is important to keep trying to ask the right question. In all the surveys I have been creating for this class, I get really stumped when I am writing the questions, because the answers can come back with little relevance to what I am looking for and no one wants to keep answering survey questions until I get the questions right for what I want to know. And...maybe I am wrong about what I think I want to know!
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December 2015
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