Field Blog 5

Today Ms. Russell is in a tough place. She has to send letters home to students who are below a C in her classes. In her first period class she has 13 students who are getting letters sent home. She says that most of those students are doing poorly in the first period class because they have poor attendance. Her grades are 60% in class and 40% assessment, so class attendance is key. While the students are working on bell work, she passes out the letters. The students seem to either be upset, or annoyed. She announced that the students need to have a parent or guardian sign the paper and the student needs to return the paper tomorrow. The students put their letters in their back pack or fold it and put it in their pocket. Then Ms. Russell has the students work on another web quest. I am starting to think that she uses web quests a lot. Ms. Russell walks around the class room and helps students if they have questions. The goal of today is to get above a 25% on the online quiz at the end of the web quest. This is so she knows that the students tried on the online quiz and did not just hit random answers. The bell rang and Ms. Russell pulled one student aside and said that he had to call home. He was failing the class and if he failed this semester, he would not graduate in the spring. It is his fourth time taking biology. He tried to talk his way out of calling his guardian, but he ended up calling. He left a voicemail. Second period started and the class was small. A couple of students came in late because they were finishing a test. Ms. Russell only had 3 students who had below a C in the class. This was a big difference than first period. Ms. Russell passed out the letters home and then helped students with the bell work and went over the bell work as a class since everyone finished it. Second period is always better behaved, on task, and ahead of first period. I think this is because Ms. Russell can give specialized attention in this class because it is a smaller class.