“This year we have learned that the aim for education should be to teach us how to think rather than what to think, to improv eour minds so as to allow us to think for ourselves.” Sasha P.S. 802
Thursday morning:
I seem to not be too bad at this lesson planning thing. I've gotten good comments overall on my plans, including that I have a good instinct for certain things, like slowly releasing the lesson onto the students over course of the lesson so that they can do the work on their own by the end of class. Assuming I execute the lesson well.
I find the best technique for planning is to think like a me. Forget about thinking like a student; students are easy. I need to think of ways to entertain myself in the lesson, which is the most challenging part. I think of ways I would study a certain topic, making sure to entertain those of short attention spans. It'll work, I hope.
Yesterday, my students averaged 79% on the exit slips. Not bad, but not perfect. I'll try to do better today.
It's also a little tough motivating my students. It's clear they understand the material, but they look so bored! I know, it's summer school. They don't need to pass a Regents or do anything special; they just need to pass the class to recover class credit. It's hard to convince them to work hard. I would like them to look excited once in a while. I hope I can show them how interesting biology is.
Though I don't have a big classroom management challenge, I failed at bathroom management yesterday. A student followed me into the faculty bathroom yesterday. At first, I didn't know what to say, because I wasn't entirely sure she was a student. When I finished washing my hands, and she was fidgeting with her phone, I said, “Where are you supposed to be?”
“Class.”
“Who's your teacher?”
“Ms. Y______.”
“You should get back to class.”
“Okay.”
“You're not even supposed to be in here.”
“Okay.”
And then she walked into a stall. Fail.
Friday morning:
Yesterday's class went great! We covered the lesson (line graphs) quickly and students showed mastery on their exit tickets (with one careless error only). We still had two students, but one of them was different. Both of my students yesterday had the same name. It makes it much easier to remember names.
We had a lesson on teaching literacy. We learned some skills for teaching students how to read and how to incorporate it into our lessons. I guess reading science textbooks isn't easy, but our class isn't very reading-intensive.
The biggest problem I'm having in my classes is timing. I've finished early in both lessons that I've taught. Students have pretty much shown mastery of the topics. I need to challenge them more by filling the class time better and with more challenging material.
And then yesterday we had the worst bus ride in the world. It took us two hours to get back to campus after school. That's a 14 mile ride. Considering I can run 13 miles in 2:44, I should consider that instead. You know what the hold up was? There was a big puddle under an overpass on the GC Parkway. Everyone had to slow down. Rush hour traffic was held up for miles. I learned that school bus ventilation is largely determined by how fast the bus is moving.
I stayed up too late last night talking to friends. It was nice and quite relaxing (much needed). Unfortunately, it doesn't feel great this morning. It took me about 10 minutes to get my contact lenses in and I forgot to bring my protein drink this morning. We don't teach, we only have professional development. All day. Almost, almost TGIF. This weekend will be much deserved.
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