The Buzz of Teaching

After analyzing my blog, I have found that most of my strategies I implemented boiled down to my need to have more of a classroom community. Going in to this program, I knew this was one of my weakest points as a teacher, so I am thankful to have had the opportunity to evaluate myself and make changes for the better. In regards to my attitude as a teacher, I feel I am extremely optimistic, yet still grounded. I set lofty goals for myself, but I believe they are actually achievable. I'm a naturally introspective person, so as a teacher I find myself constantly evaluating myself, my students, and my classroom, because I want to learn, grow, and change things so they become better. My positive attitude doesn't seem to help my students feel all that motivated to work to their best ability, but I do see that they trust me, respect me, and value what we're doing in class, even if they can't get themselves to finish their homework. I actually had a few of my EL students stop...

I found many of our videos on Teaching for Meaning to be incredibly similar. This is because we are forward-thinkers looking to improve our lives in, and out, of the classroom. While reviewing several of your videos and integrating my ideas with yours, I have determined 3 Core Principles of Making Meaning. 3 Core Principles of Making Meaning Stress Weighs You Down Encourage Life Long Learning Learn From Your Students I'd like to share my thoughts on each of these principles. 1. Stress Weighs You Down I posted about this issue in one of our discussion posts on the SCB4 Forum. Here's a list of stressors that do not involve my actual day-to-day classes: I am an integral member of the school's PBIS team. I am someone the team (and faculty throughout the school) turns to for ideas or assistance because they know me and trust that I will do a good job in fulfilling their need. Also I am going to be co-spearheading an overhaul of our school's PBIS "bran...

In William P. Marcaux's article, "Generativity: Why Care?" posted to Generativity LLC  on February 29th, 2016, the word "generativity" is defined by an adult's focus and desire to demonstrate concern and actively encourage the next generation. It's definition is further nuanced by Marcaux's additional comments postulating how exuding generativity is a similar excursion whether the participant is an educator, parent, or average citizen. As a society, we must all work together to support our youth. This noble effort is valid, yet this application of the term "generativity" must be expanded upon. Specifically, Marcaux uses the phrasing "next generation" when presenting the impact generativity has on society; naturally, our minds identify the youth - our students - as the subject of the conversation. While students are the primary focus of generativity, the "next generation" is actually a complex subject with multiple meanin...

At the Spring Conference I was able to attend several sessions by presenters who spoke about implementing more student choice in the classroom. One connection I made from the Spring Conference that (funny enough) I unknowingly began the day before  the conference was using student choice and voice in the construction of rubrics for their assessments. Specifically, in my Honors LA 10 classes I asked my students to write a blog post addressing this question: "Is the United States of America a dystopian society?" Students really took to the prompt and began writing immediately - they had lots to say. One thing I purposefully did when assigning this prompt was to leave my expectations rather vague. I didn't have any requirements aside from "address the prompt in a blog post." I did, however, tell my students that we would work together to create the rubric for this assignment, which would give them much more direction. They seemed perfectly okay with this idea. ...

Since I was a first year teacher I looked forward for years 3, 4, and 5, because that's when I heard teaching got a little more manageable. I imagined neatly filed lesson plans for each day with standards and essential questions ready to go. I'm realizing that that's not happening, so what I need right now is to remember that this feeling I'm having is relatively normal. According to an article published by The Washington Post  titled, "The 12 Qualities Great Teachers Share" states, "being a great teacher is a constant struggle to always improve." I have such high standards for myself that I often think, "oh just wait until next year. I'm going to have everything ready to go like like the teachers in the Social Studies department who just open the file cabinet and pull out the day's worksheets. Or I'd grow to become like some of the Math teachers, who create gigantic packets containing an entire trimester's materials. But...

In addition to being a Learner, I am also a Strategic Thinker. Today, I really need to be a strategist in order to accomplish my huge to-do list. I'm the advisor for the school's Creative Arts Magazine, called Luna. We collect art, writing, and photography from students and publish it in an annual magazine that comes out in about a month. When I got to school this morning, I realized that I wasn't as far along as I wanted to be. I took a few minutes and thought about the lessons I had scheduled for today. After about 15 minutes of brainstorming I decided I could move around some activities I had scheduled and hopefully free up my day so I could work on the magazine. So, before the bell rang for Period 1 (my prep) I had everything in place. I put stacks of assignments on the podium for each class, I rearranged my desks for the day, and settled in to work. My classes are lovely, so all I had to do was review the day's agenda, pass out the work, and monitor students wh...

I found myself agreeing with a lot of what the authors had to say regarding their two misconceptions. Teach to the Test I do not believe this, follow this, or do this at. all. at all. My thoughts are that school itself is the test prep. Are you going to class, doing your work, and learning? BOOM. You're prepped. It's MCA season and there are people in my department freaking out over it. Why? How many years have you been doing "test prep." Are our scores going up? No. They're going down, actually, so what good is it doing? Keep doing what you normally do. Trying to cram in 3 weeks worth of multiple choice questions, test taking strategies, and the standards you think might  be on the test will not do anything but stress us all out. Instead, take that testing strategy and introduce it in the fall. Then use it, for real. There's your test prep. It reminded me of the looks the LA department gets when our MCA scores are revealed and *surprise* our scores dropped...