Hello to everyone out there! I hope to continue to blog every week and reflect on my work week. I also hope to fit a blog in during the week here and there once I get used to the long hours. My body is still adjusting to waking up early. I was falling asleep by 8:30 everyday last week. :)
To describe this work week I would say it was fun and diligent. Meg and I gave much feedback to the students on their written responses, their first assessment, and then we received our own feedback from them at the end of the week.
Our students worked well with each other by sharing their responses and trying to explain how they found their answers. It can be tough at times, in math, to explain what they know. Sometimes they want to just write simple answers or fragments of their findings, therefore, we are trying to start them out this year on the right foot to show them what kind of explanations we are looking for. We modeled some written responses on the board and shared some of their peers answers in order for them to know it is possible!
We also gave them their first grade this week and explained what it meant. Our school is transitioning to SBG (standard based grading) and it's on a 4,3,2,1 scale. Students who received a 1 on their assessment looked a little upset and said, "No, I want a 3!" We had to remind them that these numbers do not correlate with an A, B, C, D. We were clear that it means that they are just starting to begin the standard and need a little more help with understanding the specific skill. We gave written comments on the back of their assessment and side notes where their answers were so that they could understand what we were looking for. It's still so early in the year to give them a grade, but we want them to get the feeling of this new grading system. We want them to take responsibility of their own learning and WANT to improve.
Another activity we did this week was start our brain breaks. Because of the block class, we want the kids to take a break once in while and almost charge into their subconscious mind. We don't want to lose kids throughout instruction because they have received too much information and feel overwhelmed. So, we encourage our kids to stand up and stretch and have them take part in a planned activity.
Brain Break 1: Ask the students to draw a picture of a tree. Once they were done, we showed them
some information on what their tree means about their personality. It was kind of silly and fun, but the kids enjoyed it.
Brain Break 2: Ask the students to fill out a note card. We asked them to write TWO things that they liked about the class/teachers/environment/work/learned information and TWO things they need help with or things that could help them become more successful. Then, on the back of the card, we asked them to share what they were going to do over the long weekend.
***The purpose for this brain break/feedback activity was to help Meg and I make any improvements to our class and see who would share their honest thoughts. We asked them about their weekend because we also want to make relationships with our students and have them feel like we care about them and what's going on in their life. We want to build bridges of conversation with students so that in certain moments we can find time to connect with them during work time in class, come and go in the classroom, and as we see them in the hall. I got this idea from a book I am presently reading by Carol Ann Tomlinson.
(Fullfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom). I think this activity is important for all content area teachers to do.
Here are some responses we received from our lovely students:
