Clarity for projects

This Blog post is going to be focused on an assignment that I gave last week to the students in my Small Animal Science class.

We started a unit on dog care and breeds last week. To start this unit, I gave the students an assignment, they were each given 3 names of dogs and what they had to do was find several pieces of information about each breed and one breed of their choice (after completing the breed selector found here)

The students were then to identify their breeds on a power-point, describe each breed, and select one breed to watch the dogs 101 video on.

Sounds simple, right?

Everything was going well, the students had all the information they needed, I was going to give them a demonstration to show them what I expected for each breed, and then... I over did it.

I was only expecting the students to give me 4 pieces of information which they had sections for on a notes sheet I gave them. I got so excited about this project that while I was giving my presentation I just kept talking and talking and talking, giving the students ALL of the information I asked them to find.

This ended up confusing them a lot more than I expected. As soon as I finished they started asking me questions about what I was actually expecting from them and how long their presentations should end up being. Because I did not think I was going to confuse them this much there was a few things that I did not have a good answer to at that moment. So they were left confused and I knew it.

That night, after talking to Mrs. Miller, I went home and reworked my rubric, and talked myself through everything they were asking me about. I walked into class the next day and took the first 10 minutes of class to re-explain my expectations and clear up any confusion that there may have been.

Since this time, my students have been giving their presentations, two students per day, and doing great at it.

This "flop" that I had has shown me just how important it is to be extremely clear on my expectations, and also to make sure I know exactly what I want before I expect my students to know what they need to do.

From now on, I will be looking at every project I have and every set of instructions I give to make sure they are as clear as possible. I don't want to be the cause of my students frustration and confusion again.