3 posts tagged “teaching”

I think this calls for a bulleted list. 

• You like children.
• You like your subject.
• You are very patient.
• You are not a softie.
• You want to help students succeed.
• You are very patient.
• You're very good at multitasking.
• You forgive easily.
• You are hard-working.
• You are very patient.
• You handle stress well.
• You are fairly even-tempered.  
• You are very organized, or at least capable of being very organized.  
• You perform well without thanks.
• You really, really like paperwork.
  

Um..

So, if I had done all of the statistics that my district wanted me to do, I could just look in my files and spit out some numbers for you.  I didn't.  I'm really kind of pulling at straws for this one. 

most successful learning goal:

Grammar and mechanics, maybe?  My Do Now nearly every day was a DOL exercise, and I feel like this was pretty much the most effective method I used teaching grammar.  I could really see progress from the beginning of the year to the end.  Perhaps it was because these were fairly simple concepts to understand, unlike many of the skills I attempted to teach.  Perhaps it was because I used tickets most consistently with my DOL to encourage participation.  Maybe it was just because we did it so very often.  I'm not sure. 

least successful learning goal:

I think this was parallel structure.  Of course, it's possible that this was just the most recent failure of mine.  Who knows..  Why did it fail?  That's a very good question.  I taught it in a way that seemed to make sense, but apparently did not.  I have yet to find a successful method of teaching it..  Of course, one of my wonderful first-years is teaching it soon, so maybe she will have the key.  I'm crossing my fingers.  Ok.  Why... My students don't know enough grammar.  I didn't realize soon enough that I really needed to emphasize the basics, so I didn't get a chance to cover as much basic grammar as I would've liked.  Because they didn't have a horribly firm grasp of sentence structure at the beginning, the concept of parallel sentence structure was a real stretch. Also,  I had run low on motivation to come up with creative, exciting lessons by this time, so they weren't really that into it to begin with. 

My performance this year was lacking.  As we've said over and over, the first year is about surviving.  I survived.  Barely.  I let my students bad behaviors get under my skin and got frustrated.  I associated school with misery and frustration, so I avoided anything that had to do with it.  I dreaded lesson planning, so all of my lessons were boring, so the students hated my class, so they acted up, so I got angry, so I hated school, and so on and so forth.  It was fun! 

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.  This year, I will do better.  That's my resolution.  I will try my hardest to keep a positive attitude no matter what happens.  I will look at my long-term goals for my students.  I will work slowly, incrementally, and patiently with my students.  I will plan ahead.  I will bring creativity into my lessons.  I will not feel sorry for myself, attempting instead to focus on my students.  Lofty goals, eh?

I greeted my students at the door, checked their schedules, and had their first assignments waiting on their desks.  I did not assign them seats, instead taking note of who shouldn't be sitting together and making charts after classes.  Nobody came to my class who didn't belong there, so that made me feel a little silly checking schedules, but oh well. 
The students were quiet right off the bat, working on their oh-so-exciting info sheets.  I had a writing assignment waiting on the board for after they finished their sheets- goal setting and all that.  Quite a few of the students hadn't finalized their schedules (or made them, for that matter) until halfway through the first day.  I'm glad I had something(s) to keep the ones I had occupied..  Aimless students can be a disaster, I hear.  I have backups and backup backups. 

Tomorrow, I'm going to start doing some actual work, so it won't be as painfully boring as the first two days were.  I'm excited about it.