Understanding by Design

I've done some planning this summer for my courses for next year. One thing that I did was to make a list of the topics within each course that I will teach. I made a table for each one with 3 columns: pre-assessment, project idea, extension (for DI). I hope that this will give me ideas through the unit ahead of time. I would also like to add another column of essential questions or enduring understandings. I need the time in the summer to do this and I think once I make that time before the year, it will help me (and ultimately the students) throughout the year.

Reflections

Here is a great site with reflections: http://learnweb.harvard.edu/alps/reflect/index.cfm, I pasted from the site below.

General Reflections on Education

What are we doing here? The following sets of questions can help you articulate your philosophy of education. When you are done, you can save your responses to the notepad in your backpack, e-mail them, print them, or share your thoughts with other teachers.

• What is education and who is it for?
• Who am I teaching?
• What should we be teaching?
• Why teach?
• Who teaches?

Classroom Reflections

The following sets of questions can help you think about the atmosphere and design of your classroom.

• How do I want students to interact in my classroom?
• In what ways is it important for students to interact with the community in which they live?
• What resources should be available to my students?
• How can I use the wall space in my classroom to further active learning?

Self-Assessment Reflections

The following sets of questions can help you think about your work this week and this year ... What have you learned this week? What have you taught this week? How are you doing in your work? The questions posed in this section are designed to provide you with some space in which you can consider your own professional development.

• What was the most important thing I tried to teach my students this week?
• What is/are the most important thing(s) my students will learn from me this year?
• What did I learn from my students this week?
• What was I thinking?

Some reflections:
I teach because I want to make a difference in students' lives - not just with curriculum, but by inspiring them. I am teaching a variety of students, from different backgrounds and of different levels. I want students to feel comfortable and excited coming to class everyday (good luck with that!).

Tech mentor - year 1

Last year, I was in a group with a tech mentor, with 3 other mentees. During the school year, we took 3 days where we worked on some integration of technology into the curriculum with the help of the tech mentor, and by supporting and helping each other. It was great collaboration and I was able to get alot done and great things came out of the day.

This year, I'll be a tech mentor. I feel that I already share and collaborate really well with the math department, and I will continue this, and I also am looking forward to working with a small group of teachers to assist them in learning new things that they can use in their classroom, and sharing together. I always learn from these sessions and find them very rewarding. I would like to make time to help my colleagues with any questions and share things that they may not know.

Are you a tech mentor in your building? What kind of things do you do?

HIGH SCHOOL FIRST WEEK

High school teachers: What do you do in the first week of school? Last year, I did an ice breaker and had the kids get started on setting up their blogs. They did a biography on their blog and got to know their classmates. I'm interested in what you do in your classroom, so that I can get some ideas for next year.

NING

Do you use NING in your classroom? Somehow after an amazing course with Dr. Fritz at Penn State last summer, I joined the edubloggerworld on ning, and then she created a network for her class that I joined and participated in during the past month. I have created networks for my classes this year, and I'm really excited to try it out. In the past school year, I have had the students create their own blogs, make posts and make comments on their classmates' blogs. Many of them dreaded it, "Oh no, another blog is due?" I think that sites like ning will be more their speed, but I don't want to drop the blogging entirely. Anyone have feedback? Another thing our district offers is Moodle which I am just trying to figure out so far. I would love to hear if you have any ideas!

student work

Check out my student's work at www.lmmath.blogspot.com!

trial #2 ?

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