One of my students has about 60 pairs of ears. That’s 60 on each side. Strangely, he is not as distracting as other students with just the one basic set of ears. Why?
Because he listens so well. Isn’t that what we want? To be listened to because we know that input in aural form is, next to reading, the best way to learn a language.
This kid is also filled with insights that we occasionally share after class about how things are going with his learning, etc. Last week Mr. Ear Guy told me that my end of class quizzes were too easy. He was right.
I had to own that, in my effort to be lazy at this grading game, I was giving quizzes that allowed most kids to not fully listen and still get the 8 or 9/10 needed to keep their grades where they wanted them.
Of course, those were quizzes written by my Quick Quiz writers during stories and PQA. Now, as I switch over to focus more on reading as a source of CI, I can actually prewrite the quizzes, putting more thought into them.
We’ll see what if anything comes of it. But tightening up on grading, and for me that is the Quick Quiz at the end of class primarily, along with participation and thematic unit grades (the latter bogus but impressive to parents and administrators), is something the kids are going to need as we move deeper into the hard part of the year – slightly harder quizzes will bring more discipline into the classroom CI process.