Quick Thursday Brain Dump

-
Yesterday I lost it on a class. Completely. Totally. Lost it. I had to make a new seating chart for this class because 2 groups didn't finish their labs on Monday - only class where that happened. Then I went to do a notebook check and a bunch of students didn't have theirs done. One student said he was absent so he didn't have it - even though I post it on Google Classroom at the end of every day. Another took up 5 pages for his lab and did not follow my template at all. I just completely lost it on them. I take time out of my life to make sure all this stuff is updated so they can access it from home and then they do this nonsense. Boom - I blew!!! I  feel bad about it for a couple of reasons:   
a. I let it get to me
b. I took it so personally

I know they did not do that specifically because of me, but that is not how I reacted. So things are changing a little. 

First, if they are absent I will email them and remind them to check on the Google Classroom. 
Second, I'm going to start up with the weekly emails on Thursday so parents are aware and in every email I'm going to remind them of the Google Classroom. 
Third, if they are not keeping the notebook the way I say to they don't get the points. Plain and simple. 
Fourth, not completing the lab is a failure for that lab. 

Which leads me to another point, I need to figure out a way to assess the labs. That is where the skill is developed that help them to master the standards, but not doing the labs needs to carry some consequences. The notebook will not be enough. Maybe I need to have them answer some questions each time. Yes!! I will put some questions on Google Classroom that they will need to answer after every lab. If they aren't there to do the actual lab, they will be exempt from the questions so they can regroup and get the data the next class. 

Okay, everything is a learning experience. I discovered today what I don't want so I just need to figure out ways to make sure that doesn't happen. 

Okay, time's up. I need to get ready for school. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Going in too many directions????

-
Image
I'm having trouble organizing my lessons. There are a number of technology things that go with my lessons. I am trying to use Planbookplus to create my lesson plans: Which is great but has its limitations. So I thought I would keep all of my files in One Note so I could have access anywhere. That will be good but it is almost like creating lesson plans all over again. Then I have a class blog where things need to be uploaded and offered to the kids. As a result of trying all three of these things, I have completed nothing. All of them are half done and we have just completed the 2nd full week of school. I tried an external hard drive and thought that would be a good way to do it. It has proven to be more of a nightmare than a help. Ugggggggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!! What to do???? How do I organize all the electronic information I have???? How do I keep track of things and not make myself crazy??????? So that is my struggle this weekend. I am going to complete one or tw...
Read more

And so it begins.........

-
Image
We teachers returned to school on July 24th and the students returned on August 2nd. That means we had the kids 2 days last week, Wednesday and Thursday. And it went well. This year I had to revamp my classroom management system and I think I have something that will work for me. Let me explain; My first 7 years of teaching was at private schools. Even though these private schools were at the lower financial end of the spectrum and most of our students were on financial aid, they were nevertheless private school students. Classroom management was not a huge priority as these students did their work and listened and were respectful and all that stuff. So my classroom management was a little lax because it didn't need to be really strict and tough. Well, now I'm at a public school. And in spite of the fact that this is a charter school and parents have to go out of their way to send their students here, it is still a public school. Last year I handled my classroom management l...
Read more

A stroke of genius?????

-
Image
The ongoing theme of this blog has been organization. I've been teaching for 9 years, but I haven't found a way to organize my stuff that works really, really well for me. Every single year, I struggle finding things I know I have or recreating the wheel because I've forgotten I have something. So I've been working really, really hard to get organized once and for all with a system that works for me. I know that I need to have things written/printed and at my fingertips in order to make good use of them. If I have to go online and look it up it won't happen. I've played around with binders and didn't really use them after I set them up. The last 2 years I did find great success with planners. I would divide the day up into my classes - 4 each day - and jot notes on what was to happen that day. That worked great!! As long as I planned ahead. Too many days I would get to school and the planner was blank. That left me scrambling to figure out what I'm t...
Read more