Why Bother

Things are a bit weird at the moment. I feel like I'm just killing time (and I'm sure some of the kids feel the same way). It's a bit like around the same point in the term before christmas so I have no doubt that a large factor is sheer tiredness. Still, a lot of lessons I've delivered have left me seriously unhappy.

In addition, I'm having to rush soooo much. Int2 still have Unit 4 to finish, assess, then resit their Unit 1 NAB, all in 4 weeks, with some attempt at final exam revision in there too. Int1s have finished the course, most are all up to date with NABs and LO3s, but are so hard to revise with. They seem to be much happier scrapping/swearing/whatever else. My first years are slowly... turning... into... monsters. Which scares me a bit - am I having some contribution to this phenomenon? Conversations with other teachers seem to suggest probably not, but it still leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth after our lessons. Finally, my 3rd years are seriously behind. I've only really managed to do one and a half topics this whole year. I could make up some excuses about sounding things out, teaching to more depth etc, but on the whole I think I've just let things happen a bit too loosely. At least I still feel I can try more interesting teaching methods with the two younger classes.

However, I also wanted to talk about a few of things that I thought have been successes recently.

• Mario Kart Mechanics - I only keep calling it this because it rolls off the tongue better than the other games I chose. Both classes I tried it on got very engaged with it, even though it was only one person playing at a time in time trials. It's pretty clear that they're more interested in playing than calculating, but with a bit more structure I think the activity could work pretty well as an introduction to speed at lower levels.
• Radioactivity simulation - using an activity I adapted from my time at MH with Bob Kibble with 100 dice used to simulate radioactive decay. My typically obtuse 5th years all got very excited and were grabbing for dice and counting left right and centre even though there was about ten of them crowded around one tray. Definately a winner. I hit upon the possibility of doing some sort of bets with the class - didn't take it up as I was in a temp classroom with no board space to write on but something to think about for next time.
• A revision activity provided by my friend in Edinburgh which while apparently simple seemed to really work - I will be finishing it up next week and see whether it worked.
• Taking my first years out to the front of school to plant the bulbs that they'd potted a few months ago. The pots were taking up space and the plants were starting to get too big for them anyway and it was a nice chance to get outside with the class. Typically though, some took it as an opportunity for a mess about.

Looking ahead, I've just bought a flip camera. The plan (or one of them, anyway) is to get the kids to video themselves doing their SG investigations, maybe give a talk explaining what it's about. There are, I'm sure, lots of other exciting things that I could try, but I can't think of any just at the moment!