Hard Reset

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 On Monday I did a hard reset with my 4A class. Actually, I did a hard reset with all my biology classes. I was initially going to wait until we returned from break, but I decided not to and to just jump in. On Monday I wrote 3 log entries, more than I've written all year, and I'm going to keep the pace up. I'm not dealing with it or letting it derail me, I'm just writing log entries. 

On Monday and Tuesday, I had some of the best biology classes I've had all year. They did what we needed to do and we talked about it so everyone got the same information and they left with a homework assignment that should be easy for them to pull off. It was good. 

I kind of realized that I have been trying to teach in a way that doesn't completely work for me. I've been trying to let them discover things on their own, but then because they took so much time doing that, we never got to debrief and discuss. So that will change going forward. I have 3 weeks of school left after Thanksgiving and the last week is finals, so really only 2 weeks. Yay!!! Not sure I could take much more. But I need to plan those out carefully. I need to get the finals altered so that they work and I need to have my lessons planned out in detail. 

The problem I'm running into is keeping track of everything. I'm getting better and creating plans and sticking to them, so that's good. I have a little template that I print out and keep in my binder that helps me keep track of the lessons. I also have taken to writing the plans on the whiteboard so that I can just glance over and see them. Since I have A/B days, I only have to change those 2 times a week and that is becoming a habit. It helps to kids to know what is going on and it helps keep me on track. I've also gotten pretty good at making copies once every week or two and keeping them in my sorter. It's not foolproof, but it is better than it was. What I need to develop a way to keep track of is the penalties the kids will get for misbehaving. I will be writing more log entries and docking citizenship points, so I need a way to track that. I have been keeping a bullet type journal for school but I don't think that is really working for me. I'm thinking of using my planner to keep track of everything, but do I want my personal stuff mixed in with school stuff? Not really. I do have a free daily planner that I could use to just for school. Hmmmm....that might work. I could leave it at school all week and make notes in it that I need to remember for grading, on classes, etc. Hmmm.....this has really got me thinking. I tried the bullet journal but that didn't really work for me. But I was bringing it home every night. What if I leave it at school and it lives on my desk. Hmmmm......I could keep trackers instead of days. No, that wouldn't work, sometimes I need to write details. I keep going back to my binder. I used that for a couple of years and it worked fairly well, I could try that again. Hmmm...some things to think about over my break here. 

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