I never got a chance to relax or rest during christmas break, so my first week back was pretty miserable. I guess the kids were also a bit off the wall and things didn't start looking up til around Thursday.

I started a new practice this week which is so obvious, I don't know what took me so long to do it! The topic I'm doing now easily lends itself to a long answer section of the Regents. So I put up my own 4-point Regents rubric on the board, encouraging the kids to get a point or 2 even if they're pretty clueless (as I go over the rubric, I teach them the tricks to earn partial credit even with minimal knowledge.)

The students are eating it up! For about 30 minutes I give the class multiple examples to work on either independently or with their groups and as they finish each one I give them a rubric grades. Kids who I usually get no work from are getting 1 or 2 points, and the really sever special ed students are also able to get at least 2 points using what I taught them.

I've found this to be particularly helpful for my CTT class, because everyone can get involved and see some measure of success, but at the same time the high achieving students strive for perfect 4's and with the immediate grading, they compete with each other for the perfect 4s, and look for errors and correct the work right away when they get anything less.

Ok so speaking of CTT, there was a big meeting on Friday with the principal, AP of special ed, the special ed teacher, 2 paras, the secretary, and guidance counselor. They discussed how the CTT class isn't working well and changes needed to be made next semester. They asked the CTT teacher if they saw the class working well in any subject and she said that only in my class are the SPEDs making progress while the gen ed kids are doing as well as, or better than when they started back in september. she pointed out that they work particularly well in groups in my class, and that i maintain a competitive enviroment that encourages the lower function students to achieve while engaging the higher functioning ones.

I wasn't at this meeting; I had no idea it was even taking place. But for the rest of the afternoon random people came up to me to tell me what a "hit" i was at the SPED meeting. Pretty awesome.

So last week started terribly (I mean there had to be at least 10 times a day that I just stood there staring at my students not knowing what to do because they were so bad!) but it ended pretty successfully. We'll see how next week goes.

omg respect

i teach in the main hallway in my school and lately there has been at least one fight a week outside my doors during class. usually when this happens, you can observe classroom doors swinging open throughout the entire hall as students rush out to see what's going on.

today there was a fight near the end of the day as i was 45 minutes into a math class and trying to get the class's attention to start to wrap up.

there was yelling outside and students swarmed into the hallway to get involved.

my kids actually ASKED me if they could leave their seats to see what was going on! i told them they could crowd around and watch but they had to keep my doors closed. and they listened.

unbelievable.

and within 3 minutes i was able to resume, give out some reminders, and a wrap up problem.

nyctf mantra: no excuses

the nyctf guidebook, as well as our adviser, touted the no excuses classroom environment. your class should be set up so the students have no excuse not to do their work. always have extra supplies available and all the resources they need to succeed.

using my own common sense (having forgotten about the no excuses mantra) i set up a homework chart in my room. all the assignments with final due dates are posted, as well as a folder with any make up work and handouts. i was sick of students telling me "i was absent, i didn't know i had to do the work!" of course i penalized them anyway, but i didn't want them using that as a crutch anymore.

i just instituted it this week and i've gotten at least 30% more homework than usual. the makeup sheets are going like hotcakes. anyhow, one student came into my room after school today asking about an assignment that he was absent for. i directed him to the HW chart and folder, the first he'd ever seen of them. he stared at it for a minute, took what he needed and then said "no excuses!"

i flashed back to my summer training and knew that i had unintentionally acheived what they drilled into our heads. not only did i know my students had no excuses, but they're starting to realize it too. this job is really tough, but i'm starting to see good things happening.

i'm excellent.

at least that's what my principal thinks! she nominated me for the nyctf award in classroom excellence. anyone can apply and you don't have to be nominated to even be considered for the award, but i'm very excited that my principal went out of the way to recommend me for one. i asked around my class on monday night and no one else has been nominated yet.

the thing is, i probably won't win the award since nyctf is very big on touting the prestigious universities the program member attended prior to teaching, as well as the careers many of us came from, such as lawyer, hedge fund manager, etc. if you win this award, there is a tell-all press release, along with promotional material on their website, plus you have to give a speech to the incoming cohort in the summer.

i was just a stay at home mother who worked for an internet business for many years while attending a city university part time until i finally graduated and applied to the fellows. there's nothing prestigious or even remotely interesting about my path to teaching, so i doubt i would even come close to winning the award if i apply. now the $2000 award money would be nice, but that's not what really matters. as much as i bitch on here and write about the crappy lessons i do, i really have done some great stuff this year. and as much as my principal and our educational partners tell me this, it is really meaningful to know that they went out of their way to suggest to someone else that i was an exceptional first year educator. it kinda reaffirms what i do, award or not.

worksheet aftermath + differentiated instruction

I finally graded the tests that I gave on the worksheet unit. The grades were about the same across the board, maybe a little bit higher. I guess it all comes down to retention though. I don't know how much they're going to remember come June.

So I completely differentiated my instruction today. A few days ago, I had the students choose the topics they wanted to review the most. I then grouped them according to their learning needs, but also balancing the strengths and weaknesses within each group. Each group got a folder with personalized work (they loved that their names were on their instructions!) They each had an instructional plan to follow over three days and a different role in their group. I also had them fill out forms in which they committed to their specific group roles. Most of them took it quite seriously! I also differentiated their homework! Each was given an assignment specifically relating to their classwork.

I had to prepare 20 individualized packets for all my classes. It was a ton of work. I spent every minute of my preps for the past two days getting their assignments ready. I photocopied hundreds of pages and even hand wrote some assignments. And when it came time to work in class, it was amazing. They did really well with their groups and learned a ton. During their presentations, I asked some kids questions on the spot and they were able to answer without relying on their notes. They made some good progress today. It's a lot of work, but I'm thinking of doing spiraled review like this every 2-3 weeks to keep them fresh on old work.

This was the first time that they were actually helping each other. I enforced the rule that they can't ask me any questions until they discuss it with their groupmates first. I should have been doing this all year but better late than ever. They were so productive; my preparation really paid off!

worksheet: day 2 and 3: the best week ever.

a huge success! this time i wrote up my own scaffolded worksheet. day 2 was awesome. the kids practiced at the board, then practiced on the worksheet. they were competing to get right answers and helping each other out. and those that were done quickly tried to tackle the next group of problems on the page. only 2 kids in the whole school were able to figure out the advanced problems before we got to them as a class, but most of them were on the right track.

by day 3, the advanced problems threw my most advanced class off. so i will have to readdress them tomorrow, but they will have officially finished a unit in 4 days. i realized with 5 minutes to go that my teaching was way too complicated. i was being too conceptual and nearly all of them lost me. but i did figure out how to take it down a notch and i'm sure they'll get it tomorrow.

i am finishing the unit with all of the classes tomorrow. this has been my fastest unit ever. we beat algebra equations to death for a month and it paid off big time. absolute value inequalities and equations have been a breeze. next week we will do one day of review for the test, have a test day, and then have two review days for the final (more worksheets, but in groups where they can pick their topics.)

this week started off terribly, but since tuesday, it has been the best week of my teaching career to date. my classroom management has been much more effective. i put the students in rows and haven't even allowed pair work. i know that student collaboration is important, but i felt my classes were out of control for the past 2 months. they need to relearn how to behave properly before we move on. i have been a lot more authoritative, too. i have revoked board privelages from 3 students this week. i realized i was putting up with way too much. now if a student does something stupid at the board, they're out for 2 days-1week, depending on the offense. i still allow them to share from their seats to keep them involved, but no more board till monday.

also, today i stopped the entire lesson because 3 students walked in late and started rearranging my desks. i made an example of them, and no one else thought to move a desk for the entire period. i have stopped putting up with their bullshit, and it's so much better! and that's part of the reason we raced through the unit. i have had to spend far less time trying to get the class to quiet down.

tomorrow might be challenging because it's the last day of the week, we're all sick and tired of school, and i have the largest class load. but i'm very happy with what's been going on. the groupwork will resume with the finals review. and then we'll start off next semester back in rows with worksheets until i know they can behave appropriately. (which i hope is soon because i have some great groupwork ideas that i want to implement for the next unit.)

woohoo, i'm s-rated

i had my post-ob conference on thursday and my AP loved the lesson. the only thing he wants me to watch is how i phrase my questions, which i can easily work on.

friday was a weird day. we had a school wide activity in the afternoon and my principal kept looking at me. she can be prone to stare at times, and it made me feel like i was doing something totally wrong.

but on the plus side, i got homework from every student in my CTT class except two of them! they were exceptionally good on thursday and for the second time this year, actually understood everything and wanted extra work to challenge themselves. let's see what monday holds...

i'm so tired. i don't have a lesson for tomorrow and i'm not about to write one!

just wanna give a shout out to algebra tiles. you rock, man! on monday i worked one on one with a kid who scored a low 1 on the 8th grade exam. using the tiles, within 5 minutes he was able to solve 3x-6=18.

Today I declared to the other staff members that I actually liked the CTT class in a strange way. They thought I was demented.

I gave them a lesson on adding and subtracting signed numbers. Basically boring stuff, but most of them did not know how to do it. Now they're halfway good at it. Some more practice and they should be great. They are a bit crazy and class is wild. But they did their work for the most part and their crazy personalities made it more enjoyable.

One girl in that class is averaging a grade of a 7. That's a 7 out of 100. Her mother threatened to take her out of the school and away from her friends if she didn't pass everything, so she's desperate. I gave her a ton of work to do over the weekend and mandated her to come to tutoring twice a week if she wants to pass. She was amazing today during class. She was attentive, participated, and did the group work nicely. I hope she keeps it up, because I could use more students like her!

I have to make sure I don't get egged tomorrow to officially declare this a good week. But I'm hoping...

bad test, good lesson

i gave a test this week that i thought would be really easy for them. i made the things they really knew well worth the most points but unfortunately, they either forgot it, or just forgot everything else. i'm not really sure how i would do this unit differently in the future but somehow i didn't prepare them well enough. i got 2 As out of almost 80 students. My top students all got in the 70s and 80s, and a couple even failed.

I was most upset with my CTT class, in which only 4 students passed, with the highest grade a 74. So yesterday I gave them a really fun lesson that covered a specific topic that the test was on. Usually this class is out of control, and it was hard to draw them in, but once I got their attention, everyone but one student was involved. I think every kid in the class was up to the board, even the ones that haven't done a drop of work all semester. At one point I had 10 students up at the same time and it worked great! My class was loud, but it was the most amazing lesson I had ever given. It was so much fun for us all, and when I gave them work to do on their own, they were all trying to outdo each other and go above and beyond my requirements.

Then I gave them homework to create their own examples and told them I'd give them 20 extra points on their test if they hand it in (this particular topic was worth 28 points on the test and they all bombed that part.) And if they made a super-duper example, I'd give them 30 points.

I didn't even have them today but 2 kids stopped by my classroom to drop off their homework early since they were so proud of what they'd done. one kid did 2 super-duper examples instead of the 2 regular ones I assigned. I told him to go home and do another one and he was excited! The other kid that came by is the biggest gangster in the school. He can barely even read or write, and hasn't done an ounce of work in anyone's class so far this year. It's the first homework assignment he's handed in since he started high school. He was so proud of his work, and he also did the super-duper example. He actually almost passed my test!

I'll see what kind of work I get tomorrow, but I might make a big poster with all of their super duper math examples and put it on my honor wall. The CTT kids would never get up their otherwise, and I'm so proud of them.

As for the other classes, I think I'm going to give them a second test for homework and average their two grades. I can't bear to see so many low grades. In the past when half of them failed, at least I had a good distribution. With this one, every student performed terribly! Oops...