Aquinas Class Work: Reflections and Improving Practice
When I received the class work from my students, I initially thought the activity must have been a failure. I observed very short answers for a majority of the students. One of the main goals of this assignment was to determine if students could use role-play in a short activity to reach the content themselves through interpolation. Instead of telling them Aquinas’s answers I wanted to show how they could make educated guesses through adopting the perspective of another. But from a brief look at their work, I was concerned that they did not commit themselves to completing this task
There were a few external restrictions that limited the amount of high quality answers I received. First, the students were not given enough time for both the drawing and the writing. Additionally, students found the drawing more appealing so they put their effort into that rather than second portion of the assignment. If I had the chance I would have split up the two assignments. I would have also been extremely clear about the directions. Students were too distracted by completing the criteria for the first portion of the assignment to really consider the directions for the second portion. A majority did not adopt a formal tone nor did they answer in full paragraphs. However, when I applied my method of analysis to the students’ work, I discovered that while the answers were not the best quality, they did demonstrate genuine historical imagination (and occasionally historical empathy). They primarily focused on interpolation. Adopting the role of Aquinas became a secondary concern to the goal of interpolating correctly. Mitchell's answers exemplify this phenomenon. I would only need to give more time to correct this problem.
There were a good five students that completed the assignment as I asked. These students were my generally high achieving students. Ariel’s response exemplifies how my high-achieving students really excel at written, role-play assignment regardless of any external restrictions. While more active simulations engage all of my students, this written work did not. I need to scaffold and explain the assignment in-depth so the majority of my students can reach those high expectations that I have for my high-achieving students. However, I am unsure of how to create this scaffolding for such a short assignment.
There were a few external restrictions that limited the amount of high quality answers I received. First, the students were not given enough time for both the drawing and the writing. Additionally, students found the drawing more appealing so they put their effort into that rather than second portion of the assignment. If I had the chance I would have split up the two assignments. I would have also been extremely clear about the directions. Students were too distracted by completing the criteria for the first portion of the assignment to really consider the directions for the second portion. A majority did not adopt a formal tone nor did they answer in full paragraphs. However, when I applied my method of analysis to the students’ work, I discovered that while the answers were not the best quality, they did demonstrate genuine historical imagination (and occasionally historical empathy). They primarily focused on interpolation. Adopting the role of Aquinas became a secondary concern to the goal of interpolating correctly. Mitchell's answers exemplify this phenomenon. I would only need to give more time to correct this problem.
There were a good five students that completed the assignment as I asked. These students were my generally high achieving students. Ariel’s response exemplifies how my high-achieving students really excel at written, role-play assignment regardless of any external restrictions. While more active simulations engage all of my students, this written work did not. I need to scaffold and explain the assignment in-depth so the majority of my students can reach those high expectations that I have for my high-achieving students. However, I am unsure of how to create this scaffolding for such a short assignment.