Living the Perfect Classroom 2


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 put all the work in to personalizing the learning, it didn't work because of several reasons. First, 9th Graders aren't used to keeping track of their work and setting goals yet; second, I only saw them every other day so it was hard for them to keep track of our learning; third, I am not in my classroom, and have no way to post a daily agenda with reminders on the wall - instead - I need to post it in a PowerPoint, but then I need to use the PowerPoint to run my lesson so students only got to look at our reminders for about 5-10 minutes every other day. Lots of excuses, I know.

Before the drama with my school being shut down, I had planned to do station rotations for each story element so I could meet and work with every student for a set time each day. I felt this would help us become more of a community while truly differentiating my curriculum for my students. This didn't happen for all the reasons listed above.

On a positive note, I was told I could potentially be back into my classroom on October 18th - so that's exciting!

It's really difficult to not be the teacher I normally am because of these outside circumstances. In my own space, with my materials, I feel like I have a really special thing going on with my students, but since all of those things have been stripped away, I feel like we're lost and I'm not being as good of a teacher as I know I normally am.

I don't think the students can see that I feel this way, but I definitely do.

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 4, 2018 at 7:41 PM

    I'm sure the chaos is tough to deal with, but try to remember that it is their teachers that will be consistent with them this year for the rest of the year! I'm hoping that as your kids get back into a normal routine, you'll find some success as I think that is a really good idea.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 5, 2018 at 3:39 PM

    It sounds like you are on top of the ball Nick! Having a teacher who plans ahead, plugs information into updates and the calendar on Schoology, and reviews things during class will help students reach success. Do you ever share strategies of helping students goal set/organize their homework? I found that sharing organization skills/strategies improves the number of assignments turned in. Your kiddos will more than thrive when they can see you in your element :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Presence and LaSallian Virtues

“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...
Read more

Molder of Dreams

Takeaways I feel like I resonated with his ideas about relationships. It's easy to get sidetracked by curriculum, standards, and teacher drama, but it's important to remember who you're working for: the students. Yes we all have a passion for our content areas, but teaching K-12 is about finding ways to encourage our students to care about our content. In some classes or with some material, the substance is engaging enough for some students, but in more polarizing environments, it takes more effort. Poem Sometimes I do feel like a molder of dreams because one of my favorite parts of my job is helping students identify their passions and coming up with ways for them to act on them. Teacher Impact Mz. Dennis and Ms. Valesano had the biggest impact on me in middle and high school, respectively. They encouraged me to follow my passions, found new ways to bring me into the conversation and activities, and were knowledgeable in their content areas. Coincidentally, they wer...
Read more

Teach Learn Lead Application

I attended a session on personalized learning, and I was intimated by just how scheduled and organized her school was that she could offer several different sessions at different levels all in one three hour block. My school is not structured that way, plus I didn't even know where to begin that mess, so I just took some of the basic ideas and implemented them in one lesson. In LA 9 we're reading Animal Farm  by George Orwell and I always do a lesson on the Russian Revolution since it's the whole point of the book. In the past, I've played a video and given all students the same questions, without any scaffolding. I always have some students who succeed and some who give up/don't start because they have such little background knowledge that it's too much for them to handle. This year I'm taking a more personalized learning approach. Students will choose their pathway to success - a Youtube Video or an Informational Text. Youtube Video This pathway c...
Read more