Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
Report from the Field – Robert Harrell
Share:
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Ben Slavic
Get The Latest Updates
Subscribe to Our Mailing List
No spam, notifications only about new products, updates.
Related Posts
CI and the Research (cont.)
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
Research Question
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
We Have the Research
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
7 thoughts on “Report from the Field – Robert Harrell”
That was wonderful Robert!!! You are a nice man — I like the handshake thing – my goal next year is to greet students more in the hall!!! (we are supposed to be hanging in the hall during passing time, but I was always so busy with trying to get my classes ‘ready’ – I’m going to relax a bit more next year and ENJOY all the kids more!!!) Thank you so much for this inspiration. 🙂
Thank you for sharing this Robert!
I always think of such feedback as extra compensation…. reasons beyond the monetary type that encourage and remind why we do this each year….
Also, I want to wish everyone a happy father’s day!
Skip
Robert,
First of all happy Father’s day to you and all the dads on this blog.
After all, you are like a father figure to many of us here, and we/I love to tap into your wisdom, and read your stories such as the one you just told us here.
A humbling thank you and congratulation to you today!
These boys are lucky to have had you as their teacher and they will remember you for the rest of their lives, more so than they will remember the german you generously exposed them to.
Or perhaps they will go on and become fluent speakers b/c of you. Regardless of their outcome, you made a difference in their lives, and at the end of the day, that is why many of us are in the business of education.
I agree with Skip: we are not teachers for monetary rewards b/c as far as I am concerned they’ll never pay us enough for what we are doing. The rewards that come with the territory of teaching are priceless, they have no lucrative value, they come in the form of gratitude expressed in letters such as this one, smiles, and hugs (I get a lot of hugs from my kids).
Thank you for sharing Robert, I love it that we can celebrate each other’s moments of happiness, and not just the challenges we need to overcome day in and day out.
I’m so glad that your students not only see the gifts that you share, but have taken the time to share their appreciation. (Kudos to the English teacher!!) Thank you so much for sharing Robert.
with love,
Laurie
Bravo, Robert! And a special thought for that wonderful English teacher who gave her students the chance to express something that could so easily have gone unsaid. I used to ask my students for feedback, and they gave me some wonderful thoughts, that I treasured, but I was uneasy with the idea that it felt like asking for a compliment, so I stopped. But one day I was confronted with a Spanish teacher who had just come out of a stormy session with a class we shared. “What do you do with them?” she asked. “They want to know why I don’t teach like you do!” And I felt those kids had given me a very sincere compliment.
Further report from the field.
I gave my level 1 and 2 students the Essential Sentences exam for the final on the books we just read (“Fast stirbt er” and “Die Reise seines Lebens” respectively). In addition we did what my French colleague calls S3QR: answer the following four questions:
1. Who or what is it about?
2. When and where does the story take place?
3. What is the main problem?
4. How is the main problem resolved?
We talked through the four questions in each class, and I wrote answers based on students’ response on the board for them to copy. For the exam, students could use any notes they personally had written, so I got a lot of copying for these for questions – and basically ignored it. 🙂
The Essential Sentences and drawings to show understanding were incredibly easy to grade. Some students did not quite meet the standard because they failed to include the problem or resolution (or both) that they had identified in the S3QR as part their Essential Sentences. Others included things extraneous to the telling of the story while omitting key events. Some showed thorough understanding of the book and went above and beyond anything we had discussed in class, showing that they were Advanced. (A student could be proficient by simply reflecting back what we had discussed in class; of course it was too voluminous for them simply to memorize, so they actually had to understand it.) I counted this for both Summative Interpretive Communication and Summative Presentational Communication because they were showing an understanding of what they had read (interpretation) but also giving me an written product without interaction (presentation). Eventually, students will have to write the answers to the four questions as a paragraph, but that’s for another year.
Anyway, except for one student who is coming in tomorrow to make up the exam (he was ill on exam day) and another student who is taking an incomplete because of illness, I have finished and submitted my grading earlier than I can remember ever before. Hurray for holistic grading of real communication!
Awesome to read that letter! What a way to end the year.