Concept Map#1

Hm. Very frustrating. Maybe it was just too hot in my greenhouse-like classroom this afternoon with the winter sun magnified by the expansive windows and barely any breeze bustling through the window to refresh our brains. I also feel that older students are more resistant to new methods. Maybe this isn't fair to say. Maybe I have to try harder to sell a new idea to them as they are used to a certain way of doing things. Maybe also I didn't organise it as clearly and simply as was needed for things to make sense to them. But I felt as if this was not much of a useful exercise to them. Some students didn't even bother to come up with any ideas at all about the poems in the first place which meant that then trying to compare them was pointless. I think perhaps I am moving too fast for some of them. Assuming that it is understood and moving on without consolidation. Afraid of boring them. But I think this is an important point. If I assume kids have a mental framework on which to hang new information but for them it is like a foreign language, then clearly more time needs to be spent building up their basic understanding of the poems we are dealing with. Perhaps I am rushing them too quickly to analysis. It's interesting how seriously one has to take the weather and time of day! It really has such an effect on one's capacity to concentrate. I want to try this again with this class, but first I think I need to do the questionnaire I intended on doing to find out their perceptions of themselves as learners and of how teaching should be and of the different methods I have tried - an initial response test. Although, maybe this is taking liberties at all to experiment with year 11 when the focus needs to be to get them through the exams. I guess I should ask John's permission?