It's the start of August and that means it's time to start to really think about the upcoming school year. Currently, I'm splitting my energy between classroom decoration mode and actual teaching preparation and I thought it was as good a time as any to pick up blogging again (everything seems easy in August, right?).
Anyways, here goes, here are my goals for the 2017-2018 school year. 1. Reflect. Every day. In writing. Yeah. I know. Ambitious. I'm setting my bar low and saying that a one sentence reflection is better than no reflection. And who knows, maybe this will help with more consistent blogging? 2. Stay organized. Instead of tossing extra copies into one pile and originals in another (sometimes even the same pile) and sorting through them each vacation, I'm hoping to at least create piles for each prep (I have 2). I also want to create crates for all of the INB extras for each prep so students and paras and coteachers and myself can find them easily. Along with this, I'd like to have lesson plans and copies made for at least the entire week if not two weeks in advance. 3. Relationships. It seems obvious. I want to pay particular attention to the 20 students I'll have in homeroom every day. Those 5 minutes are hard to fill with meaningful interactions. Suggestions are appreciated! 4. Flexible thinking This seems to be the guiding focus for my SLO this year (student learning objective). Still formulating what exactly this will look like and how to write a SLO surrounding it but I'm excited to explore it with my students. Ideas include: a play/fidget table, mental math Mondays and which doesn't belong? Also open to suggestions here. Four seems like a good place to stop. I don't want to be completely overwhelmed in goals. I'm ready to #pushsend and jump back (and hopefully stay) into blogging this school year!
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I've been debating for most of the summer on whether or not to start a blog. I love reading blogs (Sarah Carter's mathequalslove is an inspiration!) and I love the idea of documenting successes and failures in a permanent, public way. Historically, however, I have been AWFUL at keeping journals. Obviously, I've decided to give it a try, hoping that readers will keep me accountable! haha! I've spent a lot of time reading blogs, twitter posts and generally exploring the #MTBoS community over the past couple of weeks. I'm in awe of some of the teachers' creativity and slightly jealous of teachers setting up their classrooms! My school has been hard at work ALL summer putting in an HVAC system (hallelujah!) and has therefore restricted access to the school until recently. My classroom is not ready for me yet so I'm anxiously awaiting the email telling me can finally unpack the boxes and prepare for my second year! Until then, I'm stockpiling my spoils and making sure all my procedures and plans for the first two weeks are ready to go! To finish off this first blog post, I wanted to list my goals for the year. I'll do a post later reflecting on my fantastic first year, but these are the three areas I know I want to work on this year: consistent start of class routines, intervention and extension plans and meaningful, productive group work.
Goal 1: Successfully integrate meaningful daily warm-ups and journals that will provide formative assessment for both of us. Goal 2: Use the daily intervention/extension time intentionally to both provide support for struggling students and give all students the opportunity to learn math beyond the standards. Goal 3: Teach students how to work in a group and use group work to have successful student-led lessons. |
AuthorI teach 8th grade math in Connecticut. This is my 3rd year teaching! Archives
August 2017
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