An excuse to do something stupid
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Concerts and Exams
No new climbs. )=
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Two weeks ago Dawn and I watched Fall Out Boy live at the Araneta Coliseum. Dawn really was the FOB fan, way back before they released their Infinity on High album. She was already a fan even before I heard of FOB. Knowing my ambivalent feelings towards the band, she had me listen to their songs over and over again so I can be familiar with their songs and enjoy myself on their concert, where Dawn already had tickets more than a month in advance.
Listening to their songs over and over again, I developed an appreciation for their songs and especially for their lyrics. The impression I developed over time is that these are actually well-read people (or at least their lyricist is) with a wide variety of references in their lyrics. By the time we watched the concert, I already had a few favorites among their songs, and I was able to shout the lyrics back at the band along with the rest of the crowd.
A week ago we watched another concert, Sugarfree along with the Manila Symphony Orchestra. Again, Dawn was able to procure tickets way ahead of time, and got us seats in the very front row of the Music Museum. I must say I enjoyed myself more here than the last week's concert. The orchestra accompaniment to Sugarfree's compositions were great, and made me recall with regret the Wolfgang Acoustica concert way back when I was still in college, which I missed. The band was incredible, and unlike other local bands (the pretentiously emo Chicosci that opened the FOB concert immediately came to mind), I felt that Sugarfree's music was the type that will endure and will not become dated. Their music is sincere, sensitive, and true, with none of the obvious imitation and abject neediness displayed by other, younger OPM bands (e.g. Chicosci again).
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It has been a rather stressful exam preparation week last week, as we prepared for the midterm exams. It was a three-day struggle for me to create the Geometry exam, because the exam necessitated the creation of a lot of diagrams that had to be labeled and marked and resized and formatted and whatnot. It was also difficult to put variations on the proving steps, since our class pretty much covered as much as variations as we can cover in the past two weeks to build up the proving skill. I carelessly assumed that I would be able to come up with the Calculus and Trigonometry exams in a shorter time because traditionally they were easier to make than Geometry. I had no problems with the Calculus exam, but the Trigonometry exam floored me. I guess I should have seen it earlier, since we hardly covered any new terminologies but instead focused on proving and simplification techniques. Unfortunately, I didn't. So when I sat down and tried to generate multiple choice and true or false questions, I encountered a lot of difficulties. So it was a good thing that I got very used to using my test specifications (something that I'm pretty sure no other teacher in our school is using properly) to help me generate my questions.
Here's what I actually observed the other teachers seem to be doing with their test specifications. They generate an exam first, then they analyze each question and identify which Bloom's classification the question falls under, and then make the appropriate entry on their specifications. What happens is that the specs become just another piece of paperwork that needs to be submitted for compliance.
What I do is I sit down, decide what sections I will put in my exam (I default to multiple choice, then modified true or false, then computations/solving, and finally word problems, graphing, or proving, whichever is more appropriate to the subject), and then plot each item into the test specifications, without making the exam first. Afterwards when I make the exam, I force myself to come up with a question on a particular topic on a particular test section on a particular Bloom's category; for example, for number 22 of an exam I need to make a Comprehension question for the Modified T/F section on the topic of Cofunction Identities. That way I can put a limit on what the questions that I'm considering for that number, while making sure that I keep my exam balanced according to my topics. So far, that has worked for me. It takes a little more time in preparation, but it cuts back significantly on revision time. Plus, I'm very confident in the validity of my exams.
In the past exams my main problem was having all the exams finished by the deadline, and I had to cajole and follow-up on some of my teachers to make sure that they finish their exams on time. It wasn't that big of a problem back then, since most of my teachers were very prompt in completing their exams and their revisions, and put up little resistance. This time, I got caught by surprise. I was expecting some problems and delays on the part of our new math teacher, and instead I got blindsided by insubordination on another, usually reliable, teacher's part. So for the first time, the school's math department was not able to submit complete exams before the deadline, just at the time when the school decided to be inflexible with regard to deadlines (which is actually a Good Thing). That got me so stressed in the past few days, but it will probably iron itself out by Monday. Actually, it should.
--------
I've been lending some of my books to a couple of my sophomore students, and actually this is one of the most rewarding interactions that I have with my students. They are voracious readers who actually take the time to reflect on the books that they read. They're much better readers than I was when I was their age, and I'm very proud of them.
----------------
Two weeks ago Dawn and I watched Fall Out Boy live at the Araneta Coliseum. Dawn really was the FOB fan, way back before they released their Infinity on High album. She was already a fan even before I heard of FOB. Knowing my ambivalent feelings towards the band, she had me listen to their songs over and over again so I can be familiar with their songs and enjoy myself on their concert, where Dawn already had tickets more than a month in advance.
Listening to their songs over and over again, I developed an appreciation for their songs and especially for their lyrics. The impression I developed over time is that these are actually well-read people (or at least their lyricist is) with a wide variety of references in their lyrics. By the time we watched the concert, I already had a few favorites among their songs, and I was able to shout the lyrics back at the band along with the rest of the crowd.
A week ago we watched another concert, Sugarfree along with the Manila Symphony Orchestra. Again, Dawn was able to procure tickets way ahead of time, and got us seats in the very front row of the Music Museum. I must say I enjoyed myself more here than the last week's concert. The orchestra accompaniment to Sugarfree's compositions were great, and made me recall with regret the Wolfgang Acoustica concert way back when I was still in college, which I missed. The band was incredible, and unlike other local bands (the pretentiously emo Chicosci that opened the FOB concert immediately came to mind), I felt that Sugarfree's music was the type that will endure and will not become dated. Their music is sincere, sensitive, and true, with none of the obvious imitation and abject neediness displayed by other, younger OPM bands (e.g. Chicosci again).
---------------
It has been a rather stressful exam preparation week last week, as we prepared for the midterm exams. It was a three-day struggle for me to create the Geometry exam, because the exam necessitated the creation of a lot of diagrams that had to be labeled and marked and resized and formatted and whatnot. It was also difficult to put variations on the proving steps, since our class pretty much covered as much as variations as we can cover in the past two weeks to build up the proving skill. I carelessly assumed that I would be able to come up with the Calculus and Trigonometry exams in a shorter time because traditionally they were easier to make than Geometry. I had no problems with the Calculus exam, but the Trigonometry exam floored me. I guess I should have seen it earlier, since we hardly covered any new terminologies but instead focused on proving and simplification techniques. Unfortunately, I didn't. So when I sat down and tried to generate multiple choice and true or false questions, I encountered a lot of difficulties. So it was a good thing that I got very used to using my test specifications (something that I'm pretty sure no other teacher in our school is using properly) to help me generate my questions.
Here's what I actually observed the other teachers seem to be doing with their test specifications. They generate an exam first, then they analyze each question and identify which Bloom's classification the question falls under, and then make the appropriate entry on their specifications. What happens is that the specs become just another piece of paperwork that needs to be submitted for compliance.
What I do is I sit down, decide what sections I will put in my exam (I default to multiple choice, then modified true or false, then computations/solving, and finally word problems, graphing, or proving, whichever is more appropriate to the subject), and then plot each item into the test specifications, without making the exam first. Afterwards when I make the exam, I force myself to come up with a question on a particular topic on a particular test section on a particular Bloom's category; for example, for number 22 of an exam I need to make a Comprehension question for the Modified T/F section on the topic of Cofunction Identities. That way I can put a limit on what the questions that I'm considering for that number, while making sure that I keep my exam balanced according to my topics. So far, that has worked for me. It takes a little more time in preparation, but it cuts back significantly on revision time. Plus, I'm very confident in the validity of my exams.
In the past exams my main problem was having all the exams finished by the deadline, and I had to cajole and follow-up on some of my teachers to make sure that they finish their exams on time. It wasn't that big of a problem back then, since most of my teachers were very prompt in completing their exams and their revisions, and put up little resistance. This time, I got caught by surprise. I was expecting some problems and delays on the part of our new math teacher, and instead I got blindsided by insubordination on another, usually reliable, teacher's part. So for the first time, the school's math department was not able to submit complete exams before the deadline, just at the time when the school decided to be inflexible with regard to deadlines (which is actually a Good Thing). That got me so stressed in the past few days, but it will probably iron itself out by Monday. Actually, it should.
--------
I've been lending some of my books to a couple of my sophomore students, and actually this is one of the most rewarding interactions that I have with my students. They are voracious readers who actually take the time to reflect on the books that they read. They're much better readers than I was when I was their age, and I'm very proud of them.
:: posted by stoned raccoon, 11:37 AM
