Tuesday March 30th

Hello all-

So I wanted to start off by thanking Krista for making the exam (and a key!) Glorious and much appreciated. The key is wonderful and I think will make for more consistent grading, which was a bit of a problem on the last exam.

Additionally, I wanted to take the time here to talk about grading briefly. Is everyone willing/able to grade or are there some teachers that are unable to? I was wondering if we could figure out somewhat of a system so that we can get work back to students in a timely manner. I'm happy to take on a bunch of grading but recently I've been taking home so much grading (both from students and the instructors' box) that I haven't been able to get through it all in order to get it back to the guys when the material is still useful to them. Anyway, just been thinking about that and wanted to bring it up. I think the grading key Krista created for the exam is great and can apply to quizzes/exams etc in the future as well. I'm happy to do a bunch of grading this weekend so we can return the exams to the students next Tuesday or Wednesday and use the class time to go over any problem areas. I think the sooner we get it back the better, so we can resolve any lingering confusion/ issues...

As for class, yesterday's class went well, albeit a bit rushed. I think they are ready for the exam, but it was a lot of material to review in a short time. I gave them an outline of the ten major things they should study for the exam, and stressed that it had many parts with each section counting for a (relatively) small number of points. I encouraged the students to hone in on their strengths and not get discouraged if there was one concept or another that was difficult for them to master, as they could demonstrate their strengths in other sections of the test. The guys seem to like structure and predictability, so I think the more we as teachers can be concrete about our expectations, timelines, etc, the better.

I handed out an extra combined Lesson 5&6 workbook packet to the students who hadn't received one so they could use it as a practice exam, and picked out the exercises in the textbook's self-test that would be most useful for them as practice for the exam. I also handed back the quizzes from Lesson 5 (sections 1 and 2), but was missing MANY of the guys' section 1 quizzes. Does anyone else have these? A handful of students did exceptionally well, but the majority of students received C's (and a few D's) on this quiz, all of whom lost major points when trying to construct comparative and superlative sentences. I told them that they could correct their sentences and re-submit the quizzes no later than next Tuesday and they could earn those points back. I will record the quiz grades in the shared document once I receive them back.

Beyond class stuff, there seem to be a lot of shifts going on at the prison. There is no class today because of Cesar Chavez day, and no classes in the foreseeable future on Thursdays due to guard reassignment. The past few Tuesdays I've gone in, it has taken the count a while to clear and I've been stuck there late. Has this been happening to anyone else?

Hope all is well with everyone. Happy belated spring!

Cheers,

Kara