1 post from August 2009

My first couple weeks last year were stressful and challenging.  I had a foggy idea of what I was supposed to be teaching (not that I don't know math, but that I was confused as to were in the material I should start my classes), and an even foggier idea of how I should go about teaching the material.  The students, who were predominately 9th graders, had lots of questions about the school, which put me on the defensive, because I shared many of their inquiries.  By the start of the third week, I had quickly realized that I would need to re-amp my classroom structure in half my classes, and re-check my teaching strategies in all my classes.  

This year, things have so far (knock on wood) gone swimmingly.  For the most part, all my classes are very well organized, everyone knows what they should be doing at all times, and I have all the answers to my students questions (even though some of those answers may be lies).  With the exception of one class, my ACT prep class, I feel that I have been very successful in teaching the material to the students thus far (the ACT prep class isn't bad,  it just involves the students doing lots of sample tests, which I hope will be beneficial).

This of course leads into what I would like to do better as a teacher this semester, which conveniently is in the blog below...

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Last year my classroom felt a lot like the Soviet Union.  Lots of things were broken, some of the work was meaningless, but to some extent, things got done (albeit in a dirty way).  This year, I have a new classroom, new classes, and a new perspective.  Chiefly, I'm trying to streamline the learning experience.  I'm focusing on value added ad-ons.  Efficiency is the new buzzword, and enhanced structure is the plan.  In order to facilitate this, I have moved to a standard day schedule:   first 15 min we have a quiz, then move into a lecture over the mechanics of the day, followed by independent book work, and wrapped up with group work.  The basic idea is that the most serious work comes first, and the class relaxes as it goes on (although never too much).

The goal this year is not to have a class that runs, but have a class that runs well.  By having a firm daily structure in place, along with doing a multitude of other things well (such as having a quick turnover on grading, nipping problems in the bud), I feel that I can achieve this goal, and upgrade my class from a reliable clunker to the latest and greatest.