When I decide to make the transition to teacher, I knew there would be some adjustments. I had handled undergrad freshmen before, and grad students, and law enforcement professionals who were not science-oriented, so I told myself I’d be fine. And so far, I think it’s been going pretty well. No one has caught on fire yet, and it’s been almost a month.
One of my struggles currently is finding the balance between being responsive to their seemingly endless (but seemingly genuine) questions and the need to move forward with the material. Related to that is the constant request for study guides and a list of exactly what will be on the test. Between dealing with students concerned about a big upcoming exam and the questions of my kids at home, I found myself completely. Questioned. Out.
Lead-in: I had the kids crowd-source what topics they thought were fair game for the test. Then we did the same for study resources.
Go time: multiple stations were set up around the room. Girls traveled with a partner and could choose to hang out at each station as long as they wanted, or they could work on practice calculations I gave them on another worksheet.
