Prompt:
As for the design-process of a year long project, I learned that I need to plan several buffer days to anticipate certain lessons will take longer than I planned. I learned that planning for less content or skills can be more effective if I do a better job of teaching the few skills. Additionally, I need to be intentional about reflecting on my practice about once a month. Collecting feedback from a multitude of sources including colleague and student feedback help to validate some of my ideas and challenge others. When I asked paraprofessional, "Did I teach that ok?" he would respond, "Just ask them!"
After reviewing student feedback, students are not exactly sure how the modeling phenomena apply to their everyday lives. My colleagues appreciate that I am trying to get students to learn through discussion and visualizing models on large whiteboards even though they recognize it is a work in progress.
If I could do the year over, I would stick to my original scope and sequence because I knew the content and skills better for mechanics. I flipped the sequence to allow freshmen to build their math skills, but that ended up in a weaker electricity unit at the beginning of the year and a time crunch towards the end of the year.
I learned that can get over my "analysis paralysis" in trying to come up with a perfect plan. I need to remind myself that there is no perfect decision or solution for every instructional decision. Rather I should implement a solution, collect feedback, and redesign a new solution like in the engineering design cycle. The deadlines for the Imagine IT project have forced me to get my ideas down on paper and try them rather than letting my ideas sit in my head. I let ideas sit around in my head and I can feel anxiety around my unexecuted ideas.
I found the value in record-keeping and organizing my reflections of units so that I make improvements on units from the previous year. Google docs has allowed me to archive digital resources for my students and share old student work with my current students.
Through the teaching itself, learned that I need to intentionally teach and assess executive functioning, writing, vocabulary, and math skills for 9th graders. Students will feel more success earlier in the course by developing these skills and students will make connections among conceptual models more easily once they have developed these more basic skills. I will balance the standards-based grading with some more traditional compliance-based grading. I have seen that students benefit the most when there is a balance of both.
- What have you learned about the whole design process?
- What have you learned in the teaching itself? How has it influenced your teaching as a whole?
As for the design-process of a year long project, I learned that I need to plan several buffer days to anticipate certain lessons will take longer than I planned. I learned that planning for less content or skills can be more effective if I do a better job of teaching the few skills. Additionally, I need to be intentional about reflecting on my practice about once a month. Collecting feedback from a multitude of sources including colleague and student feedback help to validate some of my ideas and challenge others. When I asked paraprofessional, "Did I teach that ok?" he would respond, "Just ask them!"
After reviewing student feedback, students are not exactly sure how the modeling phenomena apply to their everyday lives. My colleagues appreciate that I am trying to get students to learn through discussion and visualizing models on large whiteboards even though they recognize it is a work in progress.
If I could do the year over, I would stick to my original scope and sequence because I knew the content and skills better for mechanics. I flipped the sequence to allow freshmen to build their math skills, but that ended up in a weaker electricity unit at the beginning of the year and a time crunch towards the end of the year.
I learned that can get over my "analysis paralysis" in trying to come up with a perfect plan. I need to remind myself that there is no perfect decision or solution for every instructional decision. Rather I should implement a solution, collect feedback, and redesign a new solution like in the engineering design cycle. The deadlines for the Imagine IT project have forced me to get my ideas down on paper and try them rather than letting my ideas sit in my head. I let ideas sit around in my head and I can feel anxiety around my unexecuted ideas.
I found the value in record-keeping and organizing my reflections of units so that I make improvements on units from the previous year. Google docs has allowed me to archive digital resources for my students and share old student work with my current students.
Through the teaching itself, learned that I need to intentionally teach and assess executive functioning, writing, vocabulary, and math skills for 9th graders. Students will feel more success earlier in the course by developing these skills and students will make connections among conceptual models more easily once they have developed these more basic skills. I will balance the standards-based grading with some more traditional compliance-based grading. I have seen that students benefit the most when there is a balance of both.