2018-2019 Goals

I will be starting my 13th year teaching in just a few days (I actually started today, but it took me longer to finish this post 😳). I've had a lot going on this summer, including time to reflect on how I can be a better teacher. Below are my goals for this school year; I hope you will help keep me accountable toward them.

1. Make better connections with students. I really didn't feel I did a good job with this last year. In the Fall I had a student teacher and the Spring I had a lot going on personally. This is just an area I really would like to improve on this year. I want to know more about the students personal life and how I can help them be successful.

2. Incorporate more music and musical cues into instruction. I've let students listen to music on their own when they've been working, but I realize they need to be available to talk and discuss with their classmates. I have also played music on some days for them. Inspired by Ed Campos, I'd like to use songs for various cues - getting up to the board, pairing up, starting and ending class. I've got Spotify and Amazon Music ready to go on my computer (and phone), just not sure which platform will be best until classes start.

3. Not bringing so much work home. This is going to be super tough. I'll be teaching 3 classes (for the first time in like 2 years) and having all different preps (Financial, Senior AVID, and Integrated Math 2). On top of all that, I will also have a period of coaching and curriculum planning for Math 1 & 2. And somewhere, I'll be needing to complete the preparation for my three classes, including one which will be Standards Based for the first time all the way through. - We are only 1 day into the school year and I'm already failing at this, but hopefully I'll get in a groove and planning will go smoother.

4. Not over committing. With what I'm hoping on accomplishing with the above (#3) goal, this will be very important. I enjoy being involved, but I also need to make sure how it affects my home and family time. Personally, I have several things going on this Fall (new fence, garage, roof, solar for house, In-Laws moved in, PT for ankle and knee injuries, and additional medical visits/procedures). It will become so important that I really try to take a deep breath, and the best way for this to happen is to realize what is important and say no to the other stuff! - I've already bombed at this... In addition to Department Chair and Sophomore Class Co-Advisor (which I've been doing), I am a support provider to two new teachers in our District. I've been doing this the past 4 years, but didn't last year for scheduling reasons. Hopefully, everything else that comes at me I have the strength to say NO.

Here's to a great 2018-2019 School Year!!!

Organization OCD #MTBoS

As part of the #MTBoS #SundayFunday Weekly Blogging Challenge, the post for this week is on "Everything Organization."

I am pretty organized! I actually am not as organized as I used to be before my daughter came 2 years ago, but I'm reminded often that my worse is still better than most best.

Emails: I struggle when I see people with numerous unread emails. I know they have a system that works for them, but it gives me anxiety sometimes - I can't have more than 25 emails in my box at a time. My system is: if it doesn't pertain to me, delete it and file away the email I've responded to that I need to save. What remains in my box is essentially the stuff I need to still do or respond to. This helps me to get those tasks completed so I can weed through my emails.

Papers and Files: I color code much of my stuff to help organize. ROYGBIV is my friend. I organize class periods that way and I organize course materials that way. For my course binders, I use a binder for each semester, with the courses going in order by color (Integrated Math 1 is red, Math 2 orange, Math 3 yellow, Financial green, Math Analysis blue, Department Chair is purple, and then AVID is Black). I still have some work in organizing my cabinet with all of them, but essentially I hardly ever use any of the books or information on the left side. Next to this cabinet is a huge corner cabinet - like so large I have to crawl into it to get anything in the back. In my 6 years, I still haven't figured out how to utilize it. In addition to my hard copies of materials in color-coded binders, I also organize my Google Drive Folders with the same color scheme.

Next to my computer, I have some folders that I file common student papers into. Papers to be graded, to be recorded into my gradebook (I keep a paper hard copy and then transfer scores into our online system), quiz corrections, assessments to be taken (for absent students), and then to-do folder.

Electronic Files: This is probably where I excel. I've always organized my files into folders. We've been a Google Apps district for like 6 years now. I was initially very resistant to using Drive since math doesn't work so well, but it has been getting better and catching up. Now that we have more teachers teaching a course, we use Drive to collaborate and have common files. As a Lead for our Math 1 and Math 2 courses, we organize our units with a Unit Plan. I link any documents or resources to it. It's like a one-stop shop for the team to get information, resources, and ideas from. My task this school year is to convert all of our Word files to Doc files. I'm about half way through both of those courses. With Financial Algebra, we used Drive from the start, which has been awesome and a life saver! I like to have as much as I can in electronic format since that helps to cut down on the papers I have to figure out how to file.

Classroom Space:  Several years ago I put up curtains on some side shelving. I keep some department supplies in 2 of them. The other 2 are student supplies - 1st one are whiteboards, erasers, and towels. The second set are more of the supplies - markers, glue sticks, compasses, protractors, scissors.

I have a clearly marked "IN" tray and "OUT" bins. And in between is where I keep the absent folder, Quiz Corrections Forms, and Request to Retest Forms. For absences, I place the name of the student on any work that was passed out and place it in the folder. I use to have a slip that went with it and stated specifics of what they missed, but I haven't used in over a year because the current course I'm teaching doesn't work that way - it's project based most days.

The past 5 years I've had my teaching station (doc cam) in the front corner - which was unusable space because of the angle to the board - and student desks arranged in groups of 4. This year I arranged things differently. I moved my DocCam to the back on a cart that I can stand at, then arranged the student desks into various table-top groupings (pairs, 3's and 4's). I figured it would provide students different situations to work in. The pairs are easily set-up to become a group of 4 when needed too.

I've taught AVID for a number of years, so that's why I have a lot of space decorated with Pennants. Last year I was lucky enough to have Seniors, so I started a wall for them with where they are going to college. It's a work in progress though - I have more students to put up, just haven't had the chance to work on it yet.

I'm sure I have more Organization Hacks, but for now this will have to do.

Classroom Decor

As the new school year gets ready to start, I've been working on cleaning up my classroom and reorganizing a few things. This summer I decided I needed to fix my pennants. As I was getting more (which I got two more this summer - University of Oregon and College of Idaho!) I realized I wasn't utilizing my wall space well enough. So I lined them up a little better and attached them to the wall that students would see immediately when they walked in. Having a lot of Seniors this year, I really wanted to highlight the college mentality. And I love that I am representing different colleges than what they may be familiar with.

When I first started at my current school (2011), I had created THINK posters. I really liked this saying and I wanted to remind my students to always think. This year I saw on Pinterest an addition with Social Media. I'm constantly reminding my students about this, so I decided to add this to my wall too.

Found on Pintrest

So here is how it now looks in my room:


Here is Social Media Images File if anyone would like to have them. I'm sure I will need to change them out in the future, but for now this seemed like a good collection of frequently used media.

The last set of pictures below are just additional signs I have in my room. As a math teacher, I remind students often about the "how" and "why" explanation to problems, not just "what did you get".  And the most common question - "when will I need this?" I saw this answer in a summer school classroom a few years ago. It summed up perfectly how I felt so I recreated it (file here). I don't think I've been asked the question since I put it up last year, but a new set of students will be walking in tomorrow morning, so we will see!

 

I'm still working on reorganizing some other things. As the year gets ready to start, I realize I've spent a lot of time making sure everyone else is ready and set, but I sort of forgot about myself...oh well! I'll figure it out as I go along.

I'm Back!!

After an almost two year hiatus (pregnancy and enjoying time with my wonderful daughter), I decided that I need to start blogging again. I'm hoping that I can post more often than my last go around and offer more insight and resources into my teaching.

As I've spent the summer preparing and planning for the upcoming school year, I felt like there were a lack of resources for the 3 classes I needed to prepare: Integrated Math 1, Financial Algebra, and Senior AVID Seminar. I thought if I was feeling this way, there had to be others out there? So, I'm hoping that by writing about my journey, it may stir additional conversations and offer others a place to gather some ideas. [DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert for these courses]

We are in our third year with Common Core Integrated Math. To be honest, we are really starting our 5th year since we are on a 4x4 schedule. The transition to Common Core and Integrated was tough, not for content but more due to parent and student resistance. I think it was more misunderstanding than anything. Seeing our students go through the 3 courses has been awesome - the level of math they are doing, the conversations they are having, the interest level! The past two years we were using the Mathematics Vision Project. In January, our three District high schools came together to discuss and choose one main resource that we were going to use moving forward (prior to this each school was using a different program). I highlight main resource because it was made clear that this would not be our curriculum; that our curriculum we would develop as we went and that we would have the ability to pull different resources together! Ultimately, we decided to go with CPM (College Preparatory Mathematics) as our main resource as we felt it would be more accessible to all students. While not ecstatic that we would have to change after all the time and effort my department had put in, I knew this decision would be for the best and I was still happy that I would be able to pull in my favorite MVP lessons. So I spent most of the Spring and Summer preparing for our upcoming school year. I've got 7 teachers teaching this course; 4 of them for the first time and 3 of those are brand new to our school (2 totally fresh teachers). It's going to be crazy this Fall. I'm excited at what resources we will be putting together and looking forward to the feedback our team has.

I spent a lot of the 2014-2015 school year working with another teacher in our District to get Financial Algebra as an approved course in our District. I'm a strong supporter of financial literacy in the classroom and wish more required it. At least this course would give a third year course option to our students and get them knowledgeable for the world they are about to enter. Since I was on Maternity Leave for 1/3 of last year, I decided to hold off on offering the course until this year. We got about 140 students signed up to take the class and will be offering 4 sections of it. I'm excited that I will have 2 of the sections and my former student teacher will have 2 of them. We have already spent several hours meeting and trying to figure out how we envision the class, what we want to cover, and how we can make it relevant and applicable to each student. More on this throughout the year!

Finally, I'll also be teaching Senior AVID Seminar. I taught Freshman AVID in the past for 2 years, so I'm excited and nervous about this switch to Seniors. Again, with our 4x4 schedule, curriculum gets crazy. I'm not sure how our school has managed this schedule (I know they have!) so I'm anxious about getting into figuring all that out. I'm also excited since my first set of freshman AVID kiddos are now seniors, so it'll be nice to see where they are now.

I'm planning on making an effort to blog at least once per week with my insights of these three classes. I'll post the resources I can too! I may write about a few other things too - as a BTSA support provider, department chair, sports enthusiast!

Gearing Up!

Tomorrow is the BIG day - the first day of school for students!!  Us teachers had 3 days last week of professional development (our favorite, right?) and getting our classes ready.  Of course, when I went by today to triple check that everything was ready to go for tomorrow, there were several teachers there doing the same (and I'm sure even more yesterday).

 So I took a few pictures of my classroom so I can remember what it looks like before the chaos starts, and also so it may inspire others in theres.

This is what students will see when they walk in. I hand students a playing card so that is where they find the table they will be sitting at. So, that is the purple tents on the desks.

I've been writing a Quote of the Day for years now. This is the one that will greet students tomorrow.

Looking at the front of the room.  I have class norms posted to the left.



Thanks to Pintrest - I made this one to fit my needs.

Looking from my desk to the door.

I've HATED for the past two years these exposed shelves - students would put stuff there and leave trash all the time. So I went to Wal-Mart and got some tension rods and then found curtains that (almost) fit my need (small modification needed so it would work perfectly, but no one has to know!). You can also see my storage containers for student supplies - not often needed but it's for rulers, markers, protractors, compasses, scissors, glue sticks.

This is on top of my counter.  It's just a small file system for students whom are absent to pick up work and for students to grab the form to do quiz corrections and request a test retake.

 I tried really hard this summer to get organized.  Last year was the first year I didn't switch schools, so this year I really settled in to try to make it nicer.  With new course curriculum and new leadership roles, I wanted to be certain that everything was in a good location.

Oh, hope my "roommate" and there students don't mess too much up - I'm a bit OCD and not sure I'm going to be able to handle sharing.  ;-)

The Simple Things

I went to the "office" today.  As I finish a pile at home, I take it back into work and reorganize.  I wish I could say that I don't bring any more work home with me, but I always seem to bring something else to work on.  Today I took back Algebra 2 (I got through enough last week that I will be set for about the first 3 weeks of the year) and I grabbed some Geometry, since I will now be teaching a section of that in the Spring.

I've also been going into work periodically so that I can run copies of stuff that I know I am going to need that first week.  I hate waiting in line for the copy machine during the 2 days we have before school starts (as we know that's the time they always break!), so I try to get as much done as possible beforehand.  So I was STOKED when I found out we received our new machines (they are Cannon and not Xerox) since the fiscal year just started and we have a new contract.  I tested this machine a few months ago and I was SOOOO happy with what it offered.  I also found out that they are in our new staff lounge!!  Which means that come August 13th, we will have an official staff lounge.  We had just been using an empty classroom, but with the huge growth in our enrollment, we will need all available rooms for the new teachers we have hired (last count I saw 24 new additions to our site!).

The other simple pleasure I encountered upon arriving was that my classroom had just had its deep cleaning.  The custodial staff had stacked all the desks and chairs, moved the other furniture.  They completely dusted and cleaned the cabinets, counters, and other surfaces, and they had just finished with the carpet.  It looked so spotless and wonderful in there!!

My simple happiness:  New copy machines and a super clean classroom!  What more could a math teacher ask for!