I don't know about you, but to me this question gets old fast. It was during my student teaching that I realized that I needed to create a better, less time-consuming, solution for how I manage getting make-up work for absent students/store extras of papers for students who inevitably lose them and need another one. My CT during student teaching kept her papers in a stack, where every other handout was the opposite direction, in the front of the classroom. Although this worked, I found four major flaws of the system:
The first one I really liked was the picture above on the right (I couldn't find the original source). The part I liked was that students would be able to do that themselves and it would still stay organized. I parts I didn't like was that I would need a place to store 3 different bins for different classes. Also until recently I've had classes that I see only every other day so going by day number could get messy quickly. I kept the number idea however, I just applied it in a different way. The picture in the middle above I liked because it would be a big place to post things in a calendar format. The picture on the left I like for the purposes of it not taking up much room and it be easily portable if we were working in an another room for a project. I took the elements that I liked from each of these ideas above to create my own system. I created a bulletin board calendar to post class and school information on as well as holidays. I made slips that fit in each square that would explain the information that they would need to know. I used a similar format as Eat. Teach. Write's Absent binder but made it my own. I then bought 3 different binder and a ton of double sided binder folders with tabs and numbered each side of the folders. How the system works is everyday I fill out calendar slips for each class and post it on the calendar board. I write what papers were handed out along with the number of the folder that the extras of it were placed in. I have sticky notes on the student center that either I or my paper czar write which folder number papers get placed in during the day. I also write the intro activity for the day along with what we did as well as any assignments given out. On the student side, when a student misses class they look at the calendar slip for the day they miss. If there were papers handed out that day they will find on the "papers" line something like this: "article (1) foldable (2)". The number behind the title of the paper is which number folder the paper is in. They then grab their class's extras binder, locate the folder and take the paper out. They then find the intro activity for the day, write that in their notebook and read the rest of what we did that day. If they have questions they can then ask me or another student who was present. Easy Peasy. Another option they have for find out what they miss is checking the class website. Each class has their own tab where I have google slides for each week. I write the same information that they can find on the calendar slips as well as links to slides or videos. I also have print out of the slides available for each class next to the binders on the student center. Usually the slides contain directions and information. They are available online via links on the slides but a majority of my students are not 1:1 with a device so it can be a challenge to get them access, so I printed them off for them to use when working on make up work in my room.
This system works really well for all of grade levels. It keeps the extras organized and it frees me of having to constantly giving students make up work. They can do it all on their own and ask me the more complicated questions. I always make sure they start by reading the calendar slip before I answer their questions because I want them to take initiative and be responsible in getting make up work if they miss class.
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At the start of Quarter 2 I started doing Flexible seating options in my 7-9 health classes. I was very nervous about it but it's halfway through the quarter and it's been going pretty well so far. I've had this idea in mind ever sense I starting teaching, I just had no idea how to pull it off successfully. After reading a few articles and other blog posts on Choice seating or Starbucks/Coffee shop seating I was really inspired to actually put this into place in my classroom. I posted a few questions that I had on other teacher's blogs asking them how how they make it work with their kids and rooms and then took the plunge. I talk to the janitor and we worked out a plan. This biggest thing that I got from talking to other teacher's who do this is having clear expectations ahead of time. My expectations that I came up with are listed below. Expectations:
Benefits:
I realize this might not work in all classrooms, but I'm glad I gave it a try in mine.
So this year I am trying something new by having my students have classroom jobs. Last year I spent a lot of mine time doing the various jobs below, especially cleaning, straightening things up, putting things back where they were supposed to do. I saw on Pinterest a picture with classroom jobs for middle school students and was intrigued. I had only seen classroom jobs used in elementary classrooms, but I liked the idea of putting some of the responsibility of keeping our classroom environment organized and clean on the students so I did some research. From that research, I found these two posts below where I got a lot of my inspiration when I was creating the jobs and writing up the job descriptions for my classroom.
Here is what I came up with for my classroom jobs. I like the descriptions of responsibilities and qualifications turned out and the variety of jobs I came up with. I think this will be a big help to me this year.
I think the trickiest part about having classroom jobs in a secondary classroom is how to set it up and display it so that everyone knows who has what jobs & what their responsibilities are without me needed to remind people all the time. I have three different grade levels of health (Health 7, 8 & 9) with each grade level having two classes. The 7th & 8th sections rotate every other day with PE. I didn't want to make something that would be too much work for me to keep up & that I could use year after year without it being a pain. So below is a picture of what I came up with for displaying classroom jobs.
To make this I created a table in Microsoft Word and set the page up in landscape orientation. I added the classroom jobs and their descriptions to the one column and in the others, each class got their own column. Within each column, I separated the classes by section or period. I then laminated all the papers and hung them up on the bulletin board in the front of the classroom. After I have students apply, I can write their name, first name and last initial, under their class and section with whiteboard markers. At the end of each quarter, I can wipe it off and write the new students' names down next to their jobs on the chart. I think it should work pretty slick, but time will tell. Sometimes I think things will work a certain way but when you apply students to the mix it doesn't work as I planned. Later this year I will have to write another post to let you all know how it's working in my classes!
The new school year is fast approaching! I'm sure some of you have already started. This is my last week of "freedom" then next week is workshops and the week after that we start school already. Thankfully the first week is only three days because of labor day. I can't believe it has come so quickly. I am ready and not ready at the same time. AWE!!! It's year 2 for me! I feel not as prepared as I would like to be, but I know I am way more prepared than I was last year so I am happy about that. I keep having dreams about things not going well or me not being ready or my tables being switched with desks without my permission. It's ridiculous but at least this year I have an idea of what to expect this year which is comforting, the unknown is stressful. I also will not be attending school myself while teaching so that is going to be great to be able to focus on my teaching and curriculum this year. Overall I'm looking forward to year 2. I think it will be a good one. I do not remember where I found this idea anymore, but I know that it is an awesome idea & I love it! I implemented this policy during the second half of my first year when I was fed up with answering the same simple question 10 times because students were not paying attention. I mostly use this policy for questions like... "What page are we on?" "What did we do yesterday? I was gone." "What are we doing today?" "I lost the handout from yesterday. I can get another one?" "Where are the scissors?" These types of questions drive me crazy because if a student simply took the time to look or pay attention, the answer is usually right there. For example, all of the questions above have answers that students could easily find on a calendar slip, written on the Agenda (I include page numbers on my agenda), by asking a classmate who was present or paying attention, by looking at their class's weekly document on the class website, or by using/reading the labels on the SC.
The key to using this policy is that you have the answers somewhere so that students are able to find them. How I manage this in my classroom is by having page numbers written on the Agenda, posting daily calendar slips, making sure each class's weekly online document is updated, including directions on the board or slides, and then saying it a least once out loud (often times I repeat it a few times intentionally and have my students repeat it too). At the beginning of the school year, I gave only verbal directions and it never went well for me. So after a few times of struggling through that I started to make sure that I had directions written in at least one place in my classroom for students to be able to see/find. Another reason I like this policy is that it works well with my classroom set up. The Student Center (SC), Extras Binder, Class Website, Calendar Board with calendar slips were all created so that students would be able to do things on their own. I will have a separate post on the details of all these things soon! Below is a picture of the policy from my syllabus where I explain the C3B4Me policy. As you can see at the end I wanted to emphasize that it's not that I don't want to help my students or answer their questions. To me, this policy is about teaching my students to take initiative, rather than relying on me to do or solve everything for them. I also want them to listen/pay attention the first time (because if you keep repeating things students learn tune you out because they know you will say it again so there is no need for them to pay attention the first time) and also how to use resources that they have available to them. Last year after I implemented this policy I did not have an issue with students not feeling comfortable asking questions but I wanted to make it clear that students can ask me questions. How this policy works in my classroom is that if a student asks a question that falls in the lines where students could answer it themselves by using a resource or asking a classmate such as any of the questions above, I tell the student "C3B4Me" and they usually figure out the answer on their own using one of the resources I have available for them to use. Many times students would politely say C3B4Me to another classmate if they asked a question such as what page something is on after I had said it and written it on the board. This policy worked really well with students getting makeup work. Before implementing C3B4Me, my students would ask me what they missed and never bother to use any of the resources I was spending time putting together for them. After implementation the students started to automatically do it on their own without even asking me because when they would ask me I would just say "C3B4Me" or "Did you look on the calendar board, online or talked to a classmate?" and if they said no I would tell them to start there and then if they still had questions they could come talk to me. Its beautiful!
This year I decided I wanted to create my own classroom rules or code of conduct to fit the type of classroom environment I want to create for my students. I tried having my class create rule or jobs last year, but it didn't really work all that well. There were things that my students did or didn't do that drove me crazy last year so I created these rules to help fix some of those behaviors. When looking for inspiration on Pinterest I found this "Classroom Rules- The 5 P's" idea and I really liked it. I adjusted it a little to fit my needs and I added the Big I because helping my students learn to take initiative is a huge goal of mine. So below is the poster size version of my classroom rules! Let me know what you think.
So now that I had created new rules from my classroom, I wanted to reformat and adjust my classroom syllabi. Most middle and high school syllabi are 2-4 pages (one sided) if there even is one. Mine last year was 5-6 pages long (one-sided). I think my students (and other teachers probably) thought I went a little overboard. Even so, to me a syllabus is a place where all of the classroom policies and information about a class are located. I wanted my students to know up front what my expectations and policies were so that there were no surprises later. I didn't want my students to be able to say...
"Oh I didn't know about that" or "That's not fair, you let him do ______."
I still believe this about my syllabus for this coming school year. It still contains all of the information I think they need to know to be prepared for my class. However, I've condensed my explanations and made it more visually interesting. I also took out some policies that I didn't use or had changed my mind about during my first year of teaching.
I got this idea about making my syllabus more visually interesting from Jackie at Room 213. She had a post about making a digital syllabus and it included a FREE template. So I used her fantastic template and made it my own by changing colors, fonts, and adding my own information. I am so grateful to her for sharing such a wonderful free resource!
So without further ado, here is my Health 9 Syllabus for this year.
If you would like to learn how to embed PDFs from Google Drive like I have done above, click the "Read More" below!
After having a month to think about and reflect on my first year of teaching, I know I was not the teacher I wanted to be. I did not ever expect to be the world's best teacher my first year teaching, but I know I could have done better in some aspects. I think I got caught up with trying to have everything done- lessons for all three classes planned, documents created, homework for my online classes done- and the stress of that caused me to lose focus on my students. Plus many times I did not create lessons or units to the high standard that I would have liked, I did not cultivate a classroom learning environment in the way I wanted it to be, and classroom management was a confusing struggle. The good news is that I've learned a ton from my failures. So instead of focusing on the bad I wanted to share a few things I learned. It was during the second half of year one that I started getting the hang of things a little more. I think the fact that I was willing to change and go with the flow helped me tremendously this first year. I changed so many things from the first half of the year to the second, including my classroom organization and classroom management techniques. A couple techniques that I used exclusively during the second half of the year that worked wonders for me were Hands & Eyes and Hands on Head. "Hands and Eyes" is a Whole Brain Teaching strategy that I used when I wanted my students complete attention on what I had to say. How it works I say "Hands and Eyes" and then students fold their hands together, turn their whole body towards me and look at me with their complete attention. Hands on your Head (when you're done) is something I used to help me tell who was done working and ready to move on and who was still working. Using this made it very obvious to me at a quick glance who was ready to move on and who wasn't (plus it keeps their hands occupied). How this one works is that when I say "Hands on Head" the students who are done rest both their hands on the top of their own heads. I waited to do this until I thought a majority of the class was done because I have the students keep their hands on their heads until I released them to move on. There are plenty of other ideas that I came up or found during year one that worked well, but these are the two, that I wish I would have used sooner and more often. I am hoping that during this coming school year I will have more time to post about some of these ideas I find or create so that others can use them in their classrooms as well! Looking forward to year two, in order to remedy some of my failures I have been looking and have found some good resources on classroom management as well as creating better lessons and learning environments for my students. One of these resources is where I got the picture above ( link to the full article is located at the bottom). I knew that classroom management was a struggle this year for me, but I didn't realize that the reason was because I was sabotaging my own classroom management until I read this. Turns out I did a lot of these, especially, number 1. I find it helpful to know A) that I am not the only one who did these things and B) know what exactly I did wrong so that I am able correct it for next year. There were so many things with classroom management that I was not prepared for this year and realistically, there was no way I could have been. There were so many things that my students did or didn't do that bothered me that I had never even thought about before. On the other hand, there were other areas of classroom management that I was prepared for which I think was mostly on the classroom organization front with my extras binder, calendar board, and SC (student center). All in all, year one was a success in my books. I left room for improvement, learned from mistakes, and I didn't give up. Year two here I come! |
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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