Theoretical Curriculum Planning

I think my heart lies in curriculum planning. I’m sitting at Relay right now, discussing the Next Generation Science Standards (kind of like Common Core, but for science), and I’m so excited. I just want to sit down with the NGSS and the NJ standards and the North Star Assessments and plan. I want to redesign the entire NSA science curriculum, grades 5-8. I want to sit down and organize it, and make everyone start from scratch next year. I’m sitting in class, mentally drafting an email to the principal asking how I can go about redesigning the science curriculum for the entire North Star middle school system.

I’ve had some great lunch dates this week. I had a repeat lunch date with my favorite student from last time, who has been MUCH better in my class. I even spoke to her mom on Tuesday, talking about the behavioral improvement, a full two days before our second lunch date. Besides, lunch was fun. We talked about amusement park rides and about the relative merits of various candy bars (she prefers Laffy Taffy – no wonder we don’t get along).

I also started a weekly lunch meeting with 3 new-to-North-Star students, and one who was new two years ago, and all 4 are in 7^th grade. The major objective was to have one of those new students make some positive friends. She wants really badly to fit into the NSA mindset, but shuts down immediately when she is challenged. We hope that by having her make friends who are going through the same struggles, but who respond differently to adversity, she will start feeling part of the community and make the leap to accepting the way we like to do things.

This week, I awarded myself 10 points towards my number 1 professional development goal to build relationships with students.

I also got to share my strengths with the staff. At my weekly planning meeting, my principal wanted to pick my brain about best grading practices. I was able to share ideas that were given as resources to the rest of the staff. I rock at grading because I love data. I’m only in this for the data.

Lastly, I have proudly finished the process of rewriting and formatting our first interim assessment (IA). I am really proud, but anxious to see it grow up.

I had a great running week, two. In addition to 1.5 on Monday and a fast 3 on Tuesday, I threw in some intervals on Thursday. Now, if I can drag myself out for a run after class today, I’ll be proud. Bonus points if it’s more than 5 miles.