Week's worth of postings

4-3-08

Yet another test today. Middle school teaching is great- assigning the test today effectively provided me with a day long planning period. I've got my grading completely up to date, with the exception of today's test, and it's on a scantron so grading will be effortless. I've used the time thus far to plan tomorrow, Monday, and I believe I'll complete the bellwork for all of next week before the day is out. I'm stressing my planning on applying mathematical concepts we're studying to "real-world" sort of scenarios. I'm also trying to lighten the atmosphere a little by breaking up the monotony with a little activity, etc. I want my students to have more independence. I do not want to spend my whole day asking so and so to sit down, stay on task, etc. I want to talk a little at first, set an activity in motion, and then step back and work on planning the following week.

4-7-08

Time is continuing to fly past. This job is really pretty easy now that I am more comfortable with it. My second coop teacher has taught me a lot about how to manage a class in a less labor intensive way than the last one did. Grades are posted online so students can track their progress daily, quizzes are mostly computerized and done on the student's time in a two week window, etc. Next week will be TCAPs- meaning I have no planning to do. That's such a wonderful thing.

I assigned homework today, to much weeping and gnashing of teeth. My coop teacher told me not to do it. I thought maybe I'd learn something from trying it. We'll see.

4-8

Did a little coin toss probability thing today. In general, I think it was a good thing for my class. But there was one problem. One ugly, nasty problem. I did not expect flipping a coin 100 times, working with the data, doing a bellwork problem, etc. would get done so quickly. Idle hands in the classroom spell disciplinary problems, and classroom management happens to be my weakest area. So I spent a little too much time screaming all day. From now on, I need a backup plan for every single activity. Some sort of quiz, test, etc.

4-14

TWO WEEKS LEFT! TCAPS start tomorrow- this week is going to be really, really annoying. I loathe trying to manage and control behavior all day, and that sounds like what i get to do. So I'll only get one week of fun stuff to do afterwards. I hesitate now to do anything that they claimed to be interested in, because I don't know if I believe they could behave themselves long enough for me to get it done. I'll give it a swing on the first day or two and see.