Well we've made it through the hard part of the first semester. Really, November and December go by quickly for me. There is only one full week of school from now until Thanksgiving and then only three weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's manageable.
So, on to the reflections....
First term is officially over. Grades were turned in and rosters have changed. I failed three students and had one student with an incomplete. I thought that was pretty good. The students who failed didn't show up for finals and I was told to fail them. But I've made some changes.
I was asked by my administrator to "find a way to have my students pass." So I changed my original homework policy and accepted late work from students who hadn't turned in any work. This led to hours and hours of grading for me each night. That will not be done again. I told my administrator that I am going back to my original policy and it makes my life so much easier.
My homework policy is as follows:
-Late work is accepted but at a penalty. I take 10% off of whatever score would have been received for each day that the assignment is lately. Eventually after 10 days, the assignment is worth nothing and I will no longer accept it.
-To make up for this and to give students a chance to catch up if they have fallen behind, I always provide a make up assignment and an extra credit assignment every Friday. This adds up to essentially 1 1/2 homework assignments each week. I take make up and extra credit assignments at any time during the term. These assignments are easier to grade and I don't mind taking them whenever students get them in.
It's only been one week in the new term, and this has been so much better. Less hours spent grading makes for a much happier teacher. So far, the kids are taking me seriously and turning in much more of their work. We'll see how long that lasts.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Service Projects
It has been way too long since I've written a post. There is no way that I could recap all the important things that have happened over the last few weeks. My husband and I moved into a new apartment and I've been behind on just about everything, including blogging. But now I need some help with ideas.
I'm going to try to institute some service projects for my 4th block students. I got the idea at a faculty meeting last week. We need something more for our students to help them accomplish not just getting their diplomas, but becoming productive and thoughtful adults. As a staff, we have been brainstorming ideas about how we could do this and we had two that I thought I could do with my 4th block class.
Why 4th block? My 4th block is relatively small (7 students) and more advanced than my other students. I always have to plan for an extra enrichment activity for this class because they work so hard and finish all their work early. I have decided that I could use this extra time at the end of class to plan for some service opportunities. Here are my ideas:
1. The main high school campus paper has offered our students a full page if they write some articles. I proposed this idea to my students and they loved it. There is one student who was already planning on writing an article on how she spends her typical day at our alternative school. I was looking for more ideas I could give my students to help them get started with writing. I'm not knowledgeable in the field of high school journalism, and I need to get some ideas to help them get started.
2. Our school is next door to an elementary school. One of the self-contained special education classes comes over every day at 2 pm and uses our little gym for their P.E. class. The teacher has said that he would love to have our students help out with these kids if they wanted to. If our kids would submit a simple lesson plan idea, he would approve it and let them come and work with the kids.
I have a couple students in my 4th block who are thinking about being teachers. I proposed to them today that I could teach them the basics of how to plan a lesson and we could email some lesson plans to this P.E. teacher at the elementary school. They loved the idea and think that it would be great to do something nice for these children. But neither they nor I know where to start. Elementary special education is not really my specialty. Neither is physical education. I'm good at math...and science...and occasionally english. So I need to come up with some basic ideas for games that elementary special education kids would be able to play and also have fun with as well so that I can help my students put together some fun activities to do with these younger children.
Any ideas?
I'm going to try to institute some service projects for my 4th block students. I got the idea at a faculty meeting last week. We need something more for our students to help them accomplish not just getting their diplomas, but becoming productive and thoughtful adults. As a staff, we have been brainstorming ideas about how we could do this and we had two that I thought I could do with my 4th block class.
Why 4th block? My 4th block is relatively small (7 students) and more advanced than my other students. I always have to plan for an extra enrichment activity for this class because they work so hard and finish all their work early. I have decided that I could use this extra time at the end of class to plan for some service opportunities. Here are my ideas:
1. The main high school campus paper has offered our students a full page if they write some articles. I proposed this idea to my students and they loved it. There is one student who was already planning on writing an article on how she spends her typical day at our alternative school. I was looking for more ideas I could give my students to help them get started with writing. I'm not knowledgeable in the field of high school journalism, and I need to get some ideas to help them get started.
2. Our school is next door to an elementary school. One of the self-contained special education classes comes over every day at 2 pm and uses our little gym for their P.E. class. The teacher has said that he would love to have our students help out with these kids if they wanted to. If our kids would submit a simple lesson plan idea, he would approve it and let them come and work with the kids.
I have a couple students in my 4th block who are thinking about being teachers. I proposed to them today that I could teach them the basics of how to plan a lesson and we could email some lesson plans to this P.E. teacher at the elementary school. They loved the idea and think that it would be great to do something nice for these children. But neither they nor I know where to start. Elementary special education is not really my specialty. Neither is physical education. I'm good at math...and science...and occasionally english. So I need to come up with some basic ideas for games that elementary special education kids would be able to play and also have fun with as well so that I can help my students put together some fun activities to do with these younger children.
Any ideas?
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