I am teaching at a new school and it is a new school year. I think right now I am averaging one blog post per 180 days of school so I'll get this one out of the way.
We are three weeks into the new school year and I think I like my school. I know I like my students. Some of them are real smart and I don't think they realize how smart they are.
I'm using a new curriculum and I am wondering how much it is helping. It is called Agile Minds. It has a heavy focus on teaching math through problem solving, which I like. It also is a heavy dose of pre - made powerpoints and more or less scripted lessons, which I don't like. My next unit I plan on varying from the prescribed powerpoints more than I have so far. After three weeks I hope i am getting a sense of what these lessons are like and whats good and bad.
I am wondering how I am progressing as a teacher after 5 years of doing this. I am definitely better at this now then I was 5 years ago. Kids listen to me. I am learning more and more how to be an authority. I can be an asshole when I need to be. I guess that is an improvement. I am still not as organized as I need to be. Maybe if I stay at a school for more than a few years I could accomplish that.
Oh well. I guess my goals for this school year are to plan interesting and useful projects for each unit (already missed this on the 9th graders first unit, but hopefully I ca make up for it in the second) The tenth graders have a pretty good data analysis project - I need a rubric for it though....
Second Goal - get organized (ideally I would have done this before the school year started, but now I am going to have to take some afternoon or morning and seriously catch up. (mini - goal in this goal - make sure I turn back student work in a timely fashion. That has always suffered because of my lack of organization)
Third Goal - Talk less - let students talk more - always a goal of mine, and the better I design activities and projects the better this becomes.
Maybe I'll write something come December to let you know how I am doing on these goals.
