Catching On

The students at the Learning Academy are required to do a program that helps them with their reading fluency. Some teacher decide to do this program in the classroom and others, such as Mrs. Watson, want their students to the learning assignment at home. The students in the higher grade levels at the Learning Academy are all given iPads in hopes that these will be used beneficially for educational purposes. The students in Mrs. Watson's class take their iPads home with them in order to do their homework and the app. The students are required to do an average of 20 minutes weekly on the program (arond 4 minutes every night). Mrs. Watson receives a report from the company with every student in her classroom and the times in which they were logged on/the times in which they were actually working.

"I have a hypthosis. I think that some of the students are just logging on to the program and letting the time run by while they watch TV." Mrs. Watson printed out every students report, and she wanted me to calculate the overall time they were on the program and all of the times they were working- the program has different sections and each time the student goes to a different one, the times start over again. "I don't care how long it takes me or how much extra work it is, I want my students to be the very best they can be when it comes to any subject, especially reading. I have told them that if I am suspicious of something, I am usually right. I will win." With that, the calculator came out and I began the task of adding times and comparing.

After calculating all of the times for each student and comparing it to the times that they were logged on, it was apparent that every student did not work for the full time that they were logged on. Mrs. Watson said that if they were off by a few minutes that was fine; but, after 8 minutes, something was not right and they probably let the time run. When I gave Mrs. Watson the times, she responded with, "I win," with a big smirk on her face. It goes to show that teachers know their students so well that they can intuitvely know when something is wrong. My wondering is if Mrs. Watson was starting so notice that their reading fluency was not growing at the rate it should be. I did the calculations during the later portion of the day when the students were at specials so I did not get the chance to ask Mrs. Watson this question or see Mrs. Watson confront the students individually about their times. I will make sure that I do so next Thursday.