Change

Over the past year I have noticed a lot of change personally and professionally. Because of the reflective nature of our classes I am more aware of what’s important in my life and my intentions.

Relationships: I have always been good at building relationships with my students and had to learn real quick that this is the only way I am going to get them to take risks in my room. Because of the students I work with building relationships has been the most important aspect of helping my students reach their potential. In the past few years I have really focused on my students who struggle. This year I made it a point to build relationships with those quiet students who don’t usually get a lot of my attention. I can’t believe how good it felt to purposely set some time aside to those students who otherwise might not get that time from me. My cliffette was one of those students and I think because I had to find time for her she accomplished and grew so much more because I was able to give her more. I will definitely keep the idea of a cliff cliffette in mind in future years. This has changed the way I look at my class as a whole and individual students.

Instruction/discipline: Over the past year I have taken a few risks and tried new things in my instruction. I’ve implemented new constructivist activities that got my kids taking more responsibility for their learning. At first it felt a little uncomfortable going outside of what I usually do but it was interesting to see the response from the students. I have also tried new teaching strategies that were engaging. I have been more aware of my lessons and activities and I analyzed them to see if they were high yielding and beneficial to the students. Overall the biggest change I’ve made in my instruction and discipline is applying big ideas. While planning and teaching individual lessons I try and think about the connections and big ideas I could come back to.

Assessment: Creating assessments before teaching the unit has been a great change I’ve made. I usually use the standards to build lessons but it was beneficial creating assessments ahead of time. It created direction and connection in my teaching. I became more accustomed of grading students based on big ideas instead of individual lessons. I have been using a variety of assessments and using that data to grade appropriately.