Saturday, September 1, 2007

Interesting Conundrum

Well, call me confounded. Or at least stunned.
The only blog posts that are getting comments here are the ones where I've expressed my uncertainty about being the Precision Teacher at my school this year. I admit to being rather surprised by this yesterday afternoon when I first discovered it.
I wasn't surprised to note that all of the comments were heavily in support of the idea behind Precision Teaching, with lots of suggestions on how I could share data, find support, and use it with the students. And, of course, I can't be annoyed, even though I would really like to be... I should probably point out, however, that the program is being used to boost fluency in students who have not passed and are at risk for not passing our state tests. I will see about 18 students every 2 days (about 6 per 90 block period, for 3 periods). I will likely work with students in groups of 3. Once students have mastered a particular weak spot, they are dismissed and return to the class they were pulled from. At that point, I look for new students to enter the program. This particular format doesn't lend itself well to most of my passions, but particularly those that involve teaching writing using technology and project-based learning. It may well be that the program works well with project-based learning in other locations; I don't know that.
I was going to use this post to specifically answer the comments that were posted, but then decided that I would sound snooty if I did that, so I won't. But, I will ask that people not post comments professing their love for precision teaching. I noted that I respect the fact that the trainer who did our session finds Precision Teaching to be one of her passions; I would like to ask for that same respect.
Thank-you.

2 comments:

Regan said...

Fair enough.
I use PT, but I'm not sure if I am passionate about it. I was curious, given your experience in teaching whether there were liabilities in your view of PT, and I would not consider the reply to be snooty. I am genuinely curious because I think it is useful to hear perspectives of viewed liabilities in addition to positives of an instructional approach.
I look forward to your posts on YOUR passion of Technology use and Project-based instruction, because that is an area that I would like to learn more about, and I am sure that you have much expertise, and certainly a strong interest.
If I am interested in seeing how I might apply PT to that, I guess that is something that I can look into and see.

Regards and best wishes to you on an enjoyable and fruitful school year.
BTW--this reply is meant in good will. If it is off-topic to your blog, please feel free to delete. Thanks.

SiouxGeonz said...

I'd suggest not being confounded by "patterns" in blog comment responses. Sample size is simply too low, and besides, people are more likely to respond to the Magic Buzz Word Of THe Day, I suspect ;)
I'm looking forward to hearing more about AT and sped myself...