In response to my previous two posts, and the thoughts that arose after making them, I feel now that I should itemise what I think my work process SHOULD be like. I am NOT talking about pie-in-the-sky idealism – even though I have just viewed a Powerpoint of what Google’s offices in Zurich look like………..
I just want to get a fix on what is achievable – maybe – that would streamline the process. By “the process” I mean the teaching, and the documentation of the progress of, (my) literacy students.
When they arrive, they should ideally have the appropriate paperwork with them. They don’t, always. That’s only a small issue though – no big deal.
More importantly, it would be excellent to have with their papers, the brief written account which the assessor makes, describing WHY THEY ARE HERE. Receiving their assessed levels at various aspects of literacy and numeracy is sterile information, without any context. Yes, I can gradually acquire the more personal information again, as I get to know them – but that takes time, and – just sometimes – students say to me “I said this already” or “They already asked me that” as if it is a bit annoying to have to present the same information twice. And more importantly, *I* like to have the best ‘fix’ I can on WHO the person is, right from the start.
Ideally, when they arrive, I should be able to sit down with them, for the first half hour, or hour, to orientate them to the whole situation. Sometimes I can, but not always. I find my students are in some ways quite selfish – while they are quite compassionate towards each other, in general, they are also quire selfish in terms of wanting their own needs met first, regardless of the fact that the newcomer’s needs may very clearly be more pressing. It’s a wild generalisation, of course – but I have noticed that only the more intelligent students have the sensitivity to put others ahead of themselves.
I need to transfer their literacy levels (assessment scores, if you like) onto another document (which I have created for myself) ASAP after they arrive, because that helps me to visualise their possible pathway(s) forward. I need to do this at the same time as I do the other Orientation activities, ASAP after they arrive.
I issue them with appropriate stationery to organise their work. Only some students can manage to maintain this system in a way that works – again, it is the more intelligent ones. Others continually shift and shuffle their work, so that it takes me ages to find things. For the one student who is a “real devl” at this, I save his work separately in my filing cabinet – but for the others, I think I should, once a week, do a little sorting session in which, as a group, they are reminded to check that work is in the right files, so that they or I can find it when needed. I should start doing this, either every Monday or every Thursday (because Thursday is the last day of our week).
The actual work – the teaching – THAT goes OK, mostly. I don’t think that I need to change much about that – except in the sense that ANY teacher is constantly learning about how to do it better. Last week, I listened in as one of my volunteers ( a secondary school teacher) took one class, and was impressed by his use of humour AND lots of encouragement. I don’t know if I do those things as well as he does, but I do know that I believe that both of these things are extremely important, and I do try my best to use both.
It was such a relief when this man taught, to have the attention NOT be ON ME, for an hour or so…that surprised me. But it was a good thing to become aware of, because THAT is obviously one of the aspects that can make the job tiring. I don’t think I was aware of that before then.
The marking of work needs to be done promptly. At present we don’t have Answer Sheets for most of the tasks, so the marker needs to DO all the problems, to get the answers, every time anything has to be marked. This is a ridiculous waste of time. We have begun to accumulate an Answer File, but this will be slow cumulative work.
After marking the work, it needs to go back to the students, so that they get the feedback. Then it needs to be filed in the right place, so that it can be found when needed (later). Some teachers collect it at this stage. I have been leaving it to the students, to file appropriately – in either their Literacy or their Numeracy file. (They also have a Work In Progress file.) That doesn’t ‘sound‘ difficult, but truly quite a few of the tasks could be either, so it’s easy to see how they can mix them up. (Note to self: I could re-consider whether to collect the work at this stage.)
Next comes the documentation stage. In my mind, this should merely be a formality, and should be efficiently dispensed with, as such. In reality, at the present time, this is the hardest part of the job, and extremely time-consuming. I am in the process of getting a much better ‘fix’ on how to do this, but we are lacking certain materials to streamline the process.
What are we lacking: we are lacking Assessment Tasks which fully and securely address ALL of the fine details of the outcomes that have to be met. I find this an odd thing to say because in fact we do have quite a few – not ALL the ones we need, but a lot. For the most part, I am not using these, so I need now to ask the question WHY am I not using them. Perhaps I need to look at them, more carefully, and try them out a bit more. I think I should do this. (To be honest, one reason I don’t use them is that they are often very long – say 14 pages or more – therefore they look intimidating to both me and the student – AND – they will cost a lot to print, and I am aware that consumption of resources in the office is a bit of an issue!)
Hmm……..enough for now. It’s Saturday night and I think I might go out.
Balance, balance, balance. I feel a bit obsessed with my work at the moment, because other aspects of my life are a little lacking. So, I am feeling like “at least make a good job or your work, so you have one thing to feel proud of, and good about”. Wierd, because I have a WONDERFUL life – but there it is.
