Student Work #2

This week I did not see any math in my placement. They usually do a math worksheet in the morning for their class warm up, but this week they changed things up. This was a word search which included some of their spelling words. This was the warm up the students had on their half day, and I think this was just a time filler so that my MT could take attendance and gather things to complete report cards that were do the next day. This was a task that was used to wake the students up and give my MT some extra prep time, and it served its purpose. However, this does not elicit a great amount of student thinking.

The students really do not even know how to spell the words in order to complete the task. I watched this students look at the word bank, and at each letter in the word, and then go search for a word that looks identical to it. This task was something that all of the students could complete, regardless if they could read or speak English. Most of the students found all of the words, and then turned it in to get credit.

It is hard for me to fully analyze this piece of work, because it is not a math problem, or a task of great difficulty. The students that I observed went about it in the same way as I described  above. I am unable to guess or suggest how to advance the students knowledge with this piece of work. However, I can make suggestions to help the worksheet demand a little more thinking among the students. If the worksheet did not have a word bank, then the students would be forced to find words in the puzzle that they know are words, and therefore know (or have an idea) of how to spell. This will give the teacher some insight on where the students are at with their understanding of the spelling words and other vocabulary words. Another idea is to have the students create cross word puzzle with their spelling words. They would then have to create clues for each of the word and be forced to be creative and thoughtful in the construction of their work. The two ideas I just presented, I feel, would be more useful and helpful to the students and the teacher.