...So.....Here I am again......I committed myself to writing in my blog, more for myself than anyone, for the month of January, thanks to a little prompting from A.J. Juliani and his challenge to the world (well maybe not the world, but anyone who follows him) to do a 30 day blogging challenge.
Now I could come back on here and give you every excuse in the book why I didn't follow through on the guidelines I set for myself. They are nothing spectacular, nothing new, nothing shocking that when you read them you would say "Oh my gosh, how does that woman even get through the day, she's lucky she can even get a shower taken!" They are excused, pure and simple, and they are mine and I own them. Bottom line, I didn't do what I set out to do with this blog.
So where do I go from here? Do I just give up and never come back? Do I dive in and write double blogs to make up for the ones I didn't write? Nope and Nope. I'm not perfect, never pretended to be, would never want to be, the hiccups in life can be fun! No, I think I'll just keep coming back here, I'll set a new goal for myself, and only for me, and work to stay on track.
I will tell you though, we had 4 SNOW DAYS last week. (so I had no excuse not to write!) Happy February everyone!
Monday, February 4, 2019
Thursday, January 17, 2019
The End / The Beginning
It's the end of the quarter. That means the last day of classes with these students. I feel like we have finally gotten into a "groove", know what I mean? And now, POOF they are all done, gone and onto the next quarter class.
I teach in a school that have block scheduling. While there certainly are times that it's nice to have an 80-90 minute class period, I do not like that my classes are only one quarter long. The longevity of developing a relationship with a student is not there. I do my best to make an impact in the 42-45 days we have together, but it does not always happen, I must confess.
But as we all know, an ending is only sad if you let it be, because each new beginning started with an ending of something else. So I'll come to school tomorrow, I'll take down my walls, put up new things, finish grades and prepare for 4 new groups of students to come through my door on Monday. 3 new classes to teach, to engage students in the content of my area, to start scaffolding relationships with these students (that I will have for 47 days in Quarter 3).
It's at the end of a course that I really look at what we accomplished, what I would like to have and what I want to change for the next time. Of course that next time will be a year away, so I have to be sure to make good notes. I start my summer work notes at this time, what can I do then to improve the classes.
I'd love to hear from other teachers how they reflect after a course is over, and their process for improving it.
I teach in a school that have block scheduling. While there certainly are times that it's nice to have an 80-90 minute class period, I do not like that my classes are only one quarter long. The longevity of developing a relationship with a student is not there. I do my best to make an impact in the 42-45 days we have together, but it does not always happen, I must confess.
But as we all know, an ending is only sad if you let it be, because each new beginning started with an ending of something else. So I'll come to school tomorrow, I'll take down my walls, put up new things, finish grades and prepare for 4 new groups of students to come through my door on Monday. 3 new classes to teach, to engage students in the content of my area, to start scaffolding relationships with these students (that I will have for 47 days in Quarter 3).
It's at the end of a course that I really look at what we accomplished, what I would like to have and what I want to change for the next time. Of course that next time will be a year away, so I have to be sure to make good notes. I start my summer work notes at this time, what can I do then to improve the classes.
I'd love to hear from other teachers how they reflect after a course is over, and their process for improving it.
Thursday, January 10, 2019
It was a Good Day
In education we know there are no two days the same. Honestly that's what's most enjoyable about it for me. Yesterday I got to take a group of BPA students to their regional competition. This is the first year that my school has had a BPA organization, so for these 19 students to take a chance on a new organization says a lot about their character.
BPA stands for Business Professionals of America. It is a student organization across the US and Puerto Rico (Check out the national website) intended for students interested in business careers. They get to compete individually and/or in teams in topics such as Accounting, Business Law, Website Design, Parliamentary Procedure,etc. We had 19 students complete in 6 individual and 3 team competitions (wonderful considering they had never done this before), and 16 qualified for state competition March 7-9. OUTSTANDING!
To say I am proud of these kids would be an understatement. I cannot take credit for their hard work and dedication, all I did was provide an opportunity and gave guidance, they had to do all the hard work. Check out our BEA BPA web site for more photos an updates.
So to say yesterday was different than any other day would be correct, not had a day like this before. Yesterday was a good day.
BPA stands for Business Professionals of America. It is a student organization across the US and Puerto Rico (Check out the national website) intended for students interested in business careers. They get to compete individually and/or in teams in topics such as Accounting, Business Law, Website Design, Parliamentary Procedure,etc. We had 19 students complete in 6 individual and 3 team competitions (wonderful considering they had never done this before), and 16 qualified for state competition March 7-9. OUTSTANDING!
To say I am proud of these kids would be an understatement. I cannot take credit for their hard work and dedication, all I did was provide an opportunity and gave guidance, they had to do all the hard work. Check out our BEA BPA web site for more photos an updates.
So to say yesterday was different than any other day would be correct, not had a day like this before. Yesterday was a good day.
Monday, January 7, 2019
It's a New Week....
It's Monday. It's a New Week. Things appear to be brighter on a Monday, regardless of what the weather is like outside. I have learned through the years that whether the sun is out or not has a huge affect on my outlook for the day. (And today is not looking so hot!)
But I have 9 days of this quarter left, 8 with seniors, and we have things to accomplish. Web Design has a Photoshop Unit to wrap up and a final Website to create (good thing we are on a block schedule). Accounting has a simulation to complete (we'll be working right up to the end on this one) and IT/Game design has, well you guessed it, a game to design and prepare for their classmates to play.
I love PBL work. I love that students use the skills they've learned to create something real, or use their knowledge to analyze real problems. What I don't love is how a group of otherwise capable students suddenly look at you as if you had lobsters crawling out of your ears and you were asking them to hike across the Grand Canyon on an invisible bridge.
Schools mostly have consisted of students learning and regurgitating information, following step by step instructions to complete a task, or following a rubric. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these methods (they all have their time and place) it has created a contentment to follow a path created by someone else, instead of forging ahead in their own direction. Employers today want the employee that will create and collaborate without being told to, the employee that can think for themselves, can find the solution before the problem exists. PBL lends itself to that, if you allow the student the freedom. This is where they start to freak out.
Right away they all want to know about the grade, what am I looking for, what do they HAVE to do. Whoa, back up there, when did this project become about me? This is your class, your project. Don't you want some say so in it? Why are you so ready to hand the power over to me? Now I've done class created rubrics, giving the students some say in their grade, but again it's coming back to a grade. I get it, there is a bigger monster called GPA that affects so many things beyond my little class, but how can I get my students to see that the work they are doing is far beyond what a grade on a transcript says they did?
This is not new, I realize this. And I don't know what the answer is, but I'd love to hear what you all think.
But I have 9 days of this quarter left, 8 with seniors, and we have things to accomplish. Web Design has a Photoshop Unit to wrap up and a final Website to create (good thing we are on a block schedule). Accounting has a simulation to complete (we'll be working right up to the end on this one) and IT/Game design has, well you guessed it, a game to design and prepare for their classmates to play.
I love PBL work. I love that students use the skills they've learned to create something real, or use their knowledge to analyze real problems. What I don't love is how a group of otherwise capable students suddenly look at you as if you had lobsters crawling out of your ears and you were asking them to hike across the Grand Canyon on an invisible bridge.
Schools mostly have consisted of students learning and regurgitating information, following step by step instructions to complete a task, or following a rubric. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these methods (they all have their time and place) it has created a contentment to follow a path created by someone else, instead of forging ahead in their own direction. Employers today want the employee that will create and collaborate without being told to, the employee that can think for themselves, can find the solution before the problem exists. PBL lends itself to that, if you allow the student the freedom. This is where they start to freak out.
Right away they all want to know about the grade, what am I looking for, what do they HAVE to do. Whoa, back up there, when did this project become about me? This is your class, your project. Don't you want some say so in it? Why are you so ready to hand the power over to me? Now I've done class created rubrics, giving the students some say in their grade, but again it's coming back to a grade. I get it, there is a bigger monster called GPA that affects so many things beyond my little class, but how can I get my students to see that the work they are doing is far beyond what a grade on a transcript says they did?
This is not new, I realize this. And I don't know what the answer is, but I'd love to hear what you all think.
Friday, January 4, 2019
Starting Again
It seems like people are always making resolutions, vowing to do better, eat better, exercise more, write more, whatever it is. And of course this time of year is "the time" to start over.
But really, what does it matter when you start the change to do / be something different? What matters more is if you're still doing those things you changed a month from now, 6 months, a year. The change is only a true change if it becomes part of who you are, your daily routine.
And so I begin again, writing on this blog. I have several blogs, one for school, one for personal, one for me as my journal, maybe that's my problem, too many. For now, I'm going to concentrate on my school one. When I was working on getting my master's degree many years ago, journaling/reflecting was part of most of what we did. I enjoyed it, it helped to decompress lessons I'd tried, struggles in the classroom, embrace the triumphs. Wish I would have kept up with it then, but everyone knows how that goes with one thing or another.
I will find the time to do this for myself. I will make time to do this for my students.
But really, what does it matter when you start the change to do / be something different? What matters more is if you're still doing those things you changed a month from now, 6 months, a year. The change is only a true change if it becomes part of who you are, your daily routine.
And so I begin again, writing on this blog. I have several blogs, one for school, one for personal, one for me as my journal, maybe that's my problem, too many. For now, I'm going to concentrate on my school one. When I was working on getting my master's degree many years ago, journaling/reflecting was part of most of what we did. I enjoyed it, it helped to decompress lessons I'd tried, struggles in the classroom, embrace the triumphs. Wish I would have kept up with it then, but everyone knows how that goes with one thing or another.
I will find the time to do this for myself. I will make time to do this for my students.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)