testing, 1, 2, 3….
for the past few days i’ve been giving my three high school students their end-of-the-first-grading-period tests. (if you aren’t aware, i’m teaching at a semi-local "magnet" school for the arts. the HS students each select a fine arts "major" that amounts to the first period in block scheduling. i’m the "piano" major teacher - three students, five days a week, 80 minutes a day.)
this special time of the semester has allowed me to re-discover the difference between perception and reality: what i think my students know, what my students think they know, and what my students actually know are entirely separate entities. unfortunately, this translates into them having done very poorly on their exams.
which leaves me with a huge dilemma: do i assume that i’ve simply thrown too much information at them, and back off; or do i rest uncomfortably in my suspicion that they just didn’t study? either way, i still have the problem of how to proceed from this point, since most of the topics we’re working on compound knowledge from segment to segment. in other words, since they apparently haven’t "gotten it", how much can i count of them to "step up" and "catch up", and how much do i simply have to review before we can move on?
i really don’t like the idea of going back over things they should already know; but if they don’t solidify their understanding of these ideas now, the rest of the semester(s) will just be lost on them. the question is, how much do i have to review before i re-burden them with the responsibility for learning the material?
