Even though I am bad posting on here, everything is going well in the classroom. So far in 2016, there have been CRAZY busy times as well as the "I'm-home-at-3:15-and-final-bell-rings-at-3:12" days. Right now both my 7th and 9th grade students are studying body systems which has cut down a lot on planning and preparation time. My 8th grade students just finished up learning about Chronic Diseases and we are going to start on First Aid tomorrow! This year one of my goals was to focus more time and energy on my students. Last year, which was my first year teaching, I felt like I often was so stressed and bogged down with the lesson planning/figuring everything out that sometimes I didn't pay as much attention to them as I needed to. So far there have been days where I felt I succeeded and other days not so much. Some of the ways I have been trying to focus on students this year is by first implementing choice seating arrangement which has lent itself nicely to my second strategy. My second strategy is that if I see a student struggling based on notebook turn ins, I have them sit by me at a table during class so that I can more closely monitor their learning and catch mistakes before the next grading period. If they show me they can do it on their own, they can choose where they want to sit again. I think most of them don't mind, maybe even secretly like, sitting by me. They know it's for their own benefit, because I explained why they were sitting by me, so there hasn't been much push back from those students. Other strategies is just listening to the students and coming up with creative ways to help them learn the material. Another strategy that I have had success with this year is my student notebooks. I think I have finally figured out what works for me. I started these half way through my first year. I will write a separate post about student notebooks in more detail sometime but basically I feel like it really allows me to organize my students (no lost papers) and truly do productive formative assessments. Everything that I have them do in their notebook is to help them apply the material or record content (notes). They do receive a grade for their work (otherwise some of them wouldn't bother doing it) but the grade is not on each individual page. Rather the grade is for a certain amount of pages in their notebook for that turn in. I do other formative assessment along the way outside of the notebooks but the notebooks give me something physical to look at in terms of their understanding. So that's what new with me! The picture above is from today. Like I said, some days are better than others and this picture is evidence that today was a better day (even if they did use the wrong prefix in my name)!
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AuthorI teach 7-9 Health Education & Computer 7 in rural southwestern Minnesota. I love using technology in my classroom and teaching students about how to live healthy and informed lives.
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