The Buzz of Teaching

One of My Goals Discipline Differentiation & Extension Activities I will differentiate for my students in Language Arts 9 by assigning them personalized work based on their Story Elements Pre-Assessment. There will be separate folders for each Story Element and students will work their way through the material depending on their highest needs. My Progress I did create a Pre-Assessment, and I did administer the exam, which worked out well. It took students about 35 minutes to complete the assessment. After that, I gave them each a Score Report I created and had them tabulate their scores in each category. I explained to them that they would have personalized work to complete on Schoology every 5 days. They said they understood. Cut to the first day the work was due and...whoops...all but 2 of them forgot we had anything to do. That was with Schoology Updates, writing it in my Daily Lesson Plans, and adding it to our Events Calendar on Schoology. So while I did p...

1. My emotional state has made an impact on my teaching. I remember one really negative experience that occurred during my first year of teaching. There was a girl in class who arrived late, didn't do any work, and spent most of the class time on her phone. One day in the computer lab I discovered she had snuck away to an adjoining room and was hanging out with another kid who was skipping class. I became upset and roughly asked her to come back to the classroom. She was not moving as fast as I wanted her to so I began to urge her on in a negative tone. She called me an asshole. I became even more upset and decided to make a scene about sending her to the office. I think I just repeated, "So I'm an asshole? I'm an asshole? I'm trying to teach and you're skipping class, but I'm the asshole?" That wasn't good. I haven't let anything like that happen again. I could have thought about Wormelli's list and focused on the choosing the ethical ...

I wanted to have my plans finished a week ahead of time, so I could plan how to be the engaging educator that I am in classroom spaces that are not conducive to my style of teaching. I hit a road bump when our staff was informed that my classroom (and 7 others) probably won't be finished and usable until November. That's basically the whole trimester. During the time I set aside to plan, my mind wandered and spiraled as I thought about how I was going to achieve my perfect classrooms in spaces where I can't see all my students because of an L shaped room, spaces where the video and sound do not work, spaces where other teachers will be prepping sewing machines as we try to learn, and spaces where I cannot even physically reach all of my students. I'm wallowing in a pity party right now, and I know I'll work myself out of it, but it's Sunday night, I start in 7 new classrooms tomorrow, and I'm not even sure what I'll specifically be doing in each of my ...

“There are men whose presence infuses trust and reverence.”    -T.S. Elliot Educator: I chose this quotation because I feel that with my calm, supportive personality, that I can infuse trust and reverence in my classroom. I'm not a super out-there teacher; I don't get loud, I don't jump into the middle of things, I keep my cool, stay back, and offer my services by being there. I'm reliable and people seek me out for support. I may not be a boisterous individual, but people know I'm there. Community: I feel a similar way here as I do as an educator. I do not speak up often in class, but I am present. I may not seek out ways to impress my knowledge of the material to the room, but if I'm asked, I will gladly share my thoughts. LaSallian Virtues: Calmness: I am calm but aware. I sit back, observe, and evaluate my surroundings but do not always readily engage outside of my cognition. Prudence: I am reasonable, straightforward, and accomm...

When I finished my questionnaire, I noticed a trend. That trend was that my professional life was better when I was working directly with students, worse when I was away from them, and better when I was able to connect with them. Since my school is on an alternate schedule, I'm only seeing my students every other day. While I'm reaching out to students via Schoology messages, and I'm getting to know them via FlipGrid, it's still hard to make connections. My students are very sweet and want to learn, but it's been tough. I find myself working so many more hours at home just trying to keep up a facade of normalcy with my students. I've found that I do not believe I could be a teacher who relies on online learning for the majority of my lessons. It's creating more problems than solutions. I felt such energy today because I was able to actually work with my AP students and TEACH them something in an efficient way. I kept telling my friends at work that I was...