My class today ended pretty much exactly like it ended the last time. That class also ended exactly like that lesson from the previous year. They all weren’t very\u00a0good, and I can’t be surprised.<\/p>\n
Planning for my classes this year feels like foraging through the wilderness for the first time since I started teaching a decade ago. As an administrator, I only teach one class, 3 days a week. I did this last year, but I wasn’t teaching math. This year it still feels like I am throwing ideas against the wall to see what sticks even when I have done these things before. The weird thing is these lessons have been used over and over for years, it has been difficult for me to get in a rhythm when teaching them.\u00a0Some materials\u00a0I have\u00a0date back to before I used\u00a0google drive, yet when I teach it I end up making all sorts of mistakes. I’ll emphasizing the\u00a0wrong things, I’ll drive the class into discussions we need\u00a0to avoid, and I often don’t\u00a0see really interesting follow-ups and extensions until after class is over.\u00a0\u00a0Pacing\u00a0has also been off almost every class,\u00a0forcing me to rush the lesson’s conclusion and leaving each class\u00a0with regrets.<\/p>\n
It’s not all sadness and rainstorms. Kids are passing my class, some are even excited to come. Other teachers still\u00a0look\u00a0to me for ideas for their class. This isn’t a diatribe\u00a0about how I feel I’m a terrible teacher. This is a reasoned analysis about why I’m not a better teacher, and why this blog\u00a0is also the first step towards becoming a better teacher.<\/p>\n
After walking away from today’s class I remember thinking how come everything felt so clunky? Why did I wind up in the same spot that I had in the last lesson? Why did the clunky group work structure\u00a0from today go as poorly as the\u00a0group work in a similar lesson from\u00a0last unit? How am I not learning about my teaching?<\/p>\n
During my time as a 5-period-a-day teacher I could learn through my\u00a0clunky\u00a0first period. My classes would get better through the day, and then I would go home feeling like a champion. My growth was just built into the schedule. Now that I am only teaching one class I am realizing that I need to take a more deliberate approach to my growth\u00a0as a teacher.<\/p>\n
Anyways, I’m walking away from today’s class, feeling upset about how it went, and I thought to myself “I need a place to think about my teaching,” \u00a0before thinking:\u00a0 “Duh! You’ve got a blog!” If I had been blogging about my classes this whole time I would have been able to reflect back on my old classes!\u00a0If I had a regular blogging practice during the day I would have an outlet for my lesson\u00a0frustration! And,\u00a0if I ever do figure out\u00a0how to get things done well ahead of time, I could get feedback on ideas from all the teachers in the #MTBoS! (I really did think through all of this stuff, btw, as if it wasn’t staring me in the face the whole time).<\/p>\n
Blogging about my teaching seems stressful, especially when I had a day that was bad. Pushing the submit button has gotten hard lately. This year I have\u00a0more partial posts in my\u00a0“Drafts” than I have actual Class Logs (Clogs). Having a new job, and a new baby has given me less time for writing, but if I have time to write drafts, or write posts about non-teaching related stuff, I can’t write anything\u00a0about what I’m teaching, or what I plan on teaching? Other bloggers like Michael Pershan<\/a> make it work with similarly aged children. Justin Aion<\/a> has been blogging for years and he has two kids. It seems like time for me to spend more time writing and thinking, and then thinking and writing.<\/p>\n To get started I want to do one of those one month challenge. I think seeing as how December is right around the corner it would make sense to start now and start doing it every day. I want to make time during the day to write some mathematical thoughts each day. I may also write some thoughts about administration or other things in order to keep the momentum going, but I should be able to start something. This daily plan should work, maybe it is even worthy of some kind of hashtag, but maybe I can talk about that tomorrow since I’m going to be writing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My class today ended pretty much exactly like it ended the last time. That class also ended exactly like that lesson from the previous year. They all weren’t very\u00a0good, and I can’t be surprised. Planning for my classes this year feels like foraging through the wilderness for the first time since I started teaching a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xz6U-dB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":845,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843\/revisions\/845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}