I'm a big believer in constantly evaluating myself. "Did I teach that right?" "What is a better way to handle that topic?" "How can I strengthen/fix that relationship with the difficult student?"
New Years resolutions are great for that, so here are mine.
1. Use Google calendar more effectively. I am a busy teacher. Co-sponsoring a very active StuCo, coaching a growing and developing Speech and Debate team, two daughters entering the active tween years, a wife who teaches as well, tons of student activities to go see- oh and classes to teach. I've started using my calendar, but it's time for some next level calendaring. Setting up reminders as much for me as well as for my students has already started to help, but there is so much more to do. Which also helps with my second resolution.
2. Get more organized. I've never been a neat freak. I've always enjoyed kinda making things up as I go along. But those two endearing personal traits are not going to work all the time. Again, I'm going with a Google shout out- Gooogle Forms are an excellent tool for debate meet sign ups and planning questionnaires for StuCo. For the classroom, they can be used for class feedback (something I'm getting to in a little bit) and maybe some quiz taking, but I need to experiment more with that. I hate keeping up with papers, so I want to go more digital on class work. I'm also resolving to not let my desk get cluttered. So I plan to introduce an assignment filing system. I've seen and heard from some other teachers what they use, but am open to suggestions.
3. Work on my teaching weaknesses. I expect a lot of my students. I want them to put their best work forward. I have no problem pointing out to them when they don't. It is only fair that I be made aware when I'm not doing my best. I resolve to ask for more student feedback. What do I do that works? What do I do that doesn't? I know I cannot rely solely on student feedback, so I want to be better about asking my peers for guidance and advice. I am fortunate to work at a school that encourages peer coaching- teachers observing and encouraging each other. I want to observe my fellow teachers more, and hopefully see if they will observe me. Seeing the great results of peer coaching so far, I look forward to more opportunities.
4. Strengthen relationships with students...and teachers. My students know I care about their success, they know I am willing to- and do- fight for them. But I want them to know I care about them. Personally. That I care about their extra curriculars, their work, their interests, and their struggles. That means going to games and performances, Googling ( I should get some sort of fee for endorsing at this point) the artist they can't stop talking about so I can carry on a conversation about something they care about do they are more willing to listen to the lesson I need to teach them. And teachers- communication is so important and it so easily gets overlooked. Sharing ideas, asking questions, digging into the content we teach together. Why do students miss those TEKS/standards more than others? We can evaluate data- and the numbers show what is missed, but we need to discuss why they miss them. The relationships with students and with teachers cross here- if we know what is going on with the students, we can adapt our approach to see success.
5. Work on student weakness while strengthening student strengths. In a previous post (http://amidoingthisrightteachers.blogspot.com/2014/11/good-to-great-yeah-it-book-title.html?m=1) I talked about not neglecting the stuff students do well on, because that's how you move student scores from passing to excellent. I won't rehash that here, but I plan to reteach not just the things students don't get, but also the stuff they did get in September so they do not lose it by May.
That's my list- what about you?
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