Revamped Syllabus!

News flash! Teenagers do not like wordy syllabi! For my first four years teaching, I passed out a 2-3 page course outline on either the first or second day of school. It was jam-packed full of information, but it was boring and definitely too much text.

Year 5... I decided to be more creative. While it is still two pages, I HOPE it is a lot more visually appealing and certainly has far less text!

Want to see it for yourself? Click here.

Ideally, my students this year will at least take a look at it. I also strategically placed the information I definitely want them to see on the first page, so if they never flip it over... the world will not end. 

I also eliminated the part where a family member had to sign the course outline. Truth be told... I think most of the signatures I received back were forged. 

One big thing you might notice - I AM BRINGING BACK INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOKS THIS YEAR! YAY!

#IThoughtThisWasMyDreamJob

That tweet summarizes today. It was a rough day. In one of my co-taught classes, there is one student who has a blatant disregard for rules, directions, and human decency. Sure, I teach a bunch of teenagers with large egos and attitude problems. I only teach one who has no sense of respect for any other human being. 

There is minimal support from his vice principal, and I am at the point where I no longer feel comfortable having him in our class. Sure, I have only taught about 400 students so far in my life, but this is still the only one who has made me truly question my profession. There have been rough days where I think for a few seconds "is it worth it?", but today is the only day where I am genuinely not sure. 

The one kid may ruin this career for me. I know I should not get worked up over one student and instead focus on all of the positives - but I feel harassed and uncomfortable. That sort of behavior should have a zero tolerance from administration. ::sigh::

I guess I will just have to see how this pans out... 

Standards Based Grading

For about two years now, I have been mulling over the idea of SBG for my special education resource level Algebra 2 classes. I have just really been struggling with implementation. We have classes of varying length (some periods are 48, others are 54) and I often feel like this is not long enough. At the same time, if I did have single skill based quizzes, the assessments would not take as long.

My main issue is when to offer re-takes. I do not have my own classroom. This really puts a damper on having students come in early or stay after school for extra help or to retake assessments.

I am currently deciding if it would be feasible to have a "quiz re-take day" once every two weeks or so, where for 15 minutes during the period, students could re-take a quiz. My issue with that becomes what if they need to retake more than one?

Also, what remediation must they complete in order to be eligible for a re-take? My students do not complete homework, so most of them would never be eligible for a re-take if I required an assignment to be completed.

Hmmm... lots of thinking to do before next school year. I would not want to begin a new grading system partway through the school year anyway.

Any suggestions for a newbie like me?

Movin' On Up!

Nothing too exciting - just get to move from MA to MA + 15 since I finished my ed-tech certificate program in August and I'm on the BOE agenda for tonight.

Back-To-School-Night!

Back to School Night is TOMORROW! Unlike last year, I have nothing prepared. I guess I will just be tweaking my handout and presentation from last year to talk about new course changes (such as Class Cash - post coming soon!).

I'm already exhausted.. not sure how I am going to be able to stay at school until 9:30PM tomorrow. Oyyy. Consider that I usually leave my house at 6AM and that I will not be getting home until at least 10PM. I call that a long day!

#GoogleClassroom Extension!

So, on my twitter feed the other day was an announcement for a new Google Classroom Extension.

Seriously, if you use Google Classroom, GO GET IT NOW!

Once you add it to Chrome, it looks like this in the upper-right side of your browser:

Why is it awesome? Well, if all of your students add the extension, you can instantaneously push websites to them or post announcements/assignments right from there without having to go into Google Classroom.

It's handy!

Thanks, Google!

#MyGoalForTheYear

On the first day of school, my exit ticket for the students was to write a statement to go along with #MyGoalForTheYear. I told them I wanted it to be something they could attain by June, so writing down "to be a doctor" was not a good example because as hard as they worked, they would not be a doctor in 10 months. Mostly, these were grade based, but I want to share them anyway. (Note: I did not have time to do this with my last class).

#MyGoalForTheYear
* obtain an A-B average throughout this year for every class
* is to not miss a lot of homework
* graduate
* get straight As
* get above a C in all my classes
* As and Bs all year =)
* pass all my classes
* pass Algebra 2 with an 85 or more
* pass my classes and graduate on time
* pass this class with a 100%
* get an A so I don't have to take the final exam
* get good grades
* receive no grade lower than a B
* my goal would be to get my own pet. we just moved into our new house so I want to have my own responsibility. (I did encourage them to think OUTSIDE of the confines of school. So I really liked reading this one!)
* prepare to go to India this summer
* pass
* pass and graduate with my class
* get As and Bs in my classes
* maintain all As and Bs
* end this class with B

What does this tell me? My students are actually more motivated than last year. Or, at least they are starting out that way. I think that's great because they are more willing to think and to work.

I'm excited for the year!

#MyGoalForTheYear is to continue to push and motivate my students to think critically and mathematically and to help them mature, both academically and personally.