As I recap what I did this year, I can honestly say that I did some good things, some mediocre things and some negative things. I can honestly say that. No ifs and buts about it. I did not give 100% 100% of the time. No excuses.
My goal is to increase the good and decrease the bad. I know this and I have been working on revamping and changing my unit/lesson plans. I have attended 2 face-to-face conferences so far and I am scheduled to attend 2 face-to-face more. In between my conferences, I am participating in several MOOCs, online classes and online conferences. I am trying to get the knowledge and resources to revamp my classes and include more structure and rigor in my classes.
We have too much NEW to deal with so I must be sure that I am better prepared. CCSS is here and we have a new curriculum guide, new texts to share and a new assessment system. We have a new teacher evaluation system that I must comply with. I am trying to create unit/lesson plans so that when school starts, I am starting off on the right foot armed with weapons.
Some of the NEW things that I want to do next year
daily center rotations:
- bi-weekly, my classes will rotate through a variety of center stations (ie: vocabulary preparation, test preparation, journal prompts and theme/voice/tone exercises)
student blogs:
- regular blog posts about the work that we do in class
classroom jobs:
- jobs for 2-3 weeks on a rotating schedule
class scribes:
- posting notes, pictures and videos to the class blog
Edmodo:
- there are many apps that can be used to foster collaboration and assess student work
more student training:
- in order to establish a routine, I must be sure that I teach them not only what I want them to learn but also the way I want them to learn it
participation sheets:
they can keep track of our assignments and the standards that we have covered in class
student evaluations:
check-in with them every 3 weeks to see what needs to be improved
Some of the OLD things that I want to do next year
Remind
keeping in contact with students and parents via text messages
Class Blog
will post daily assignments
Use of visual text
images get the students to analyze and infer
Close reading literacy strategies
they will annotate, summarize, connect images to text, RAFT writes, etc.
These are just some of the things that I have decided to take on. There will be many more things before the year starts.
Will check in again
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