Here come the midterms

This week at Ypsi High was mostly reviews. The all important midterms are next week. We have a particularly challenging hour that we are worried about. While many students are trying to catch up with the material (these tests, at in the math classes I am helping with, are comprehensive) over the last semester. The good news is that most of the material has been building on itself, which means the students often had refreshers about material covered early last semester. Nonetheless, it is not easy being tested on an entire semester's worth of material.

So, this week what we did was work on sample exams. We begin class by distributing review questions that students work on individually. This gives them the chance to ask questions about topics they need help about. We also have a new student teacher this semester from the University of Michigan. So, we have been three strong in class, and had most questions covered. It is interesting to see how far some students have come over the semester. However, unfortunately there are also students that started out well, but are not doing as good as early in the semester.

Once the winter semester starts, we will have a chance to once again focus on students that need the extra help to achieve in class. The student population will slightly change as some students would be added from other classes, while a few that do not pass the semester will join other students to take the classes over again. I tried to remind this fact to as many of the students I could talk to this week to make sure they take the reviews seriously, and stay with the rest of their friends in the winter, and not have to take this again.


As a side note, it was interesting to chat with the student teacher who I asked how much they learn in college about handling students and discipline, as it seems almost half the time and energy in Ypsi classes seems to be spent on disciplining and dealing with students in order to cover the material. What she said was that it was not a major part of the curriculum, and they had may be one credit hour of material that pertains to it - which makes me think she might be in for a surprise. On the other hand, the student teaching period is, I believe, meant to teach them about such issues that are not covered in class. It also makes me appreciate the experience I get from being in the classrooms.