Thursday, July 26, 2012

Summer Plans

So this is the summer before my first year of teaching. I'm excited for the school year to start, but I don't really want summer to end yet!

This summer I have been doing:

1) AP Summer Institute: New Statistics Teachers
I attended a 4 day workshop on teaching AP Statistics tailored towards new AP teachers. It was very informative and I suggest anyone teaching an AP class to go to these workshops! I got a textbook, tons of pre-made materials from other teachers, and won an older resource set with test questions, solution manuals, and a older version of a popular AP Stats textbook.

2) Reading Wong's The First Days of School
I am all over this book. I wish we were required to read in it my education program, perhaps during student teaching as a way to grow and even implement ideas as we read them. I'm almost through the book and I'm looking forward to my first week. I definitely recommend this to any new or veteran teacher!

3) Reading Howe's First Year Teacher
This book is not as step-by-step informative as The First Days of School, but it covers many things that happen throughout the year with tons of tips from teachers about certain events (like parent teacher conferences, curriculum night, handling prejudice, etc.). Definitely worth the read.

4) Geometry End Of Course Success Workshop
I will be attending a workshop in August about the geometry course I will be teaching and the new end of course exams that are statewide.

5) Pinning classroom ideas to my Pinboard.
I'm really finding Pinterest to be a great resource for classroom ideas, classroom management, as well as literature, activities, and units I can use in my classroom. I'm so glad to be apart of pinterest!

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Student Teaching

Student teaching is about halfway through, and I am loving it. It's a completely different experience from my early field placements, and it was to be expected. The thing that I see most important to teaching is knowing exactly how to conduct that day's class. Even if you're being spontaneous, it's having the toolbox of activities you can do that will keep the students busy because any downtime and the whole class period is lost.

I'm also helping coach the JV/Freshman Softball teams and it's something fun to do at school. I'm learning a lot about the girls and I have some of my students on the team, too.

Alright, back to lesson planning and prepping.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Grading Homework

How should I grade homework? I can't get over the idea of not grading homework completely for accuracy, but I know that if I keep grading every question my life if going to end and I will not be able to grow as a teacher.

I don't want to not grade all of it because I don't want to give my students the impression that I don't look at their work, or that if they do set up a problem wrong I want them to get the feedback necessary to grow as a student. My cooperating teacher grades for completion of the assignment and then samples a few questions. Do you think this is a good way to go? Are there other alternatives for grading paper homework? I don't have the option to use an online homework system unless it is something I can do for free.

First Week of Student Teaching

This week was my first week of student teaching, and hence I have more hours of classroom time than I had in the past semester, and in two more weeks it will be more than I had in the past year and a half. I don't know, I just feel unprepared for actually teaching. How do I pace a unit? How do I assign homework from a textbook? How do I actually see all of my students working when I'm writing on an overhead and the light in my eyes makes it hard to see anybody?

I'm glad I have my cooperating teachers to help me along the way, but I still feel like these things should have been emphasized in my program (not the overhead thing, but the others). How do you actually have time to cover material when periods are only 50 minutes long and students take about 5 to settle down? Classroom management was something we talked about a lot in our classes, but it doesn't help to "practice" them on ourselves since everyone in our program knows how we should act, we need to be in a classroom. I want to be a successful teacher, and I know I will be always learning about how to handle my class.