Sunday, January 26, 2014

Teaching in January

I labeled this blog "Teaching in January" because that is what I am doing currently. That makes no since but if you have every taught in January then you know it is one of the hardest months to teach in; well it is for me. I am so burned out that it is unbelievable that I make it to school the days we actually have school. I go though and not for any other purpose then to prove to myself that this month will be over and my urge to teach will come back. I switched my career paths in college because I did not want to be shut up in a basement somewhere doing lab test. I wanted to get out and share my knowledge and love of learning with someone.

Many things have happened since my last post and I am sorry that I have not posted before now.

First, I had to go back and reteach the Earth's systems and Earth's Place in the Universe Unit. I had the students complete a Prezi, most students loved it, and it was a major fail. In grading their projects over Christmas break I found that not many of the students understood what each term was and how they were related. I sat down with our awesome instructional coach and worked on reteach unit that was supposed to take 3 weeks and now has moved back because of the snow days. Regardless, we are moving on and finishing up the unit. This unit includes four squares, foldables, smelly eggs, graham crackers, homework and various other activities. I gave a pre-assessment to judge what knowledge that my students retained from last quarter's projects and the results where not very exciting. I expected it. The students just had their first quiz of the reteach unit and I have to say that it seems like they are retaining more information.

This is where I sometimes wish I taught one grade of Science and not two because then I would feel like I can focus more on the grade then being divided between two. However, I do like seeing the growth from year to year that my students have.

Last quarter I started using menus with the 7th graders. I found that a lot of my students have no organization skills at all. They think that once they get something back they do not need it anymore, which is not true, so I started making them keep folders with all of their information in it. I need to get back to that. The only problem with menus is that I have to make so many copies. I did do an interactive notebook but I need to step this up more this quarter.

There are so many different aspects of teaching that they do not tell you about in preparation of becoming a teacher. I do not know if they can really tell you everything. I have to keep this in mind when I am teaching my students. You can only do so much as a teacher and you have to rely on what other people do and say in order to feel the student is prepared for the next grade.

Going to make an effort to blog weekly. Setting a reminder!!!

Sincerely,
Ashley

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