I would have the superpower to improve a student's situation at home with a wave of my magic wand. My prayer list grows longer every year I teach.
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1. I don't blame students when they don't understand the lesson. This is especially important as in interventionist. If they don't understand, it is my job to find a different way to explain it. I put a great deal of time and effort into researching new methods of explaining math concepts.
2. I listen to my students. I listen to their stories. I listen to their hurts. I listen to them tell me they think they are dumb. I listen to them talk about their families, their friends, their pets. Too many adults are in too much of a hurry to just stop and listen. 3. I have high expectations for my intervention students. Each one has the ability to improve and I will help them get there. As an interventionist, I am regularly progress monitoring my students. Those tests give me the data I need for reporting, but are not useful to students. I am always trying to encourage my students, since many come to me with math anxiety or the idea that they are "no good" at math. I need to be very careful with my feedback. I use an exit slip every day, which helps me learn what they know, but also gives them a brief bit of feedback everyday. Could you complete the question that was our goal for the day?
1. ipads
Love! Student engagement is high when they are working on ipads. Even math seems like a game! 2. ActivBoard Using the ActivBoard lets my students come up and be a part of the lesson. I hope that I find a better way to progress monitor my students so that I am not giving them yet another test to see how they are doing. I hope to constantly improve in
My favorite part of the day is right after the students leave --- not because I don't like my students, but because it is a chance for me to pause and reflect on the day. What went well? Who needs extra practice? What can I change to help them? My intervention blocks run back-to-back all day long, so there is no time during the day for reflection.
5 random facts about yourself
4 things from my bucket list
3 things I hope for this year
2 things that have made me laugh or cry
1 thing I wish more people knew about me
Last year, I decided that I wanted to teach an in-house workshop to teachers. I created a presentation on number sense routines that included a hands-on session where teachers created a number-of-the-day question-stick set. Just last week, one of the attendees told me she is using the question set in her class and the students love it! Even though everyone in my building knows I did that last year, they don't know that is is the first step in my goal of creating curriculum material to present at a national math conference. Baby steps.
Besides the typical school supplies? Excedrin Migraine, a screwdriver, and a nail file...and lots of little erasers that my students have given me over the last few years. I give funky erasers as incentives in math intervention, so they think I must like them, too.
My first thought about today's prompt was that it was like asking me to choose my one favorite book, but here goes...
After 2 years of teaching 7th grade math, I was reassigned to teach 5th grade. I had no prior notice, nor did I have a choice. I left that meeting with my principal thinking that everything I once thought was true, wasn't anymore. I had spent hundreds of hours that spring writing my own curriculum that used projects and portfolios and writing and actual time DOING math. I had spent hundreds of dollars purchasing resources, thinking that I would be using them for years to come. I felt like my district had just pulled the rug from under my feet. I wondered how I would ever figure out what I was doing in a new grade, a new building, and teaching every subject. The answer came in the form of my co-teacher, Jill Manley. Jill was a special ed teacher assigned to my room. She had taught in the building before, but not 5th grade. Jill showed me where things were in the building, procedures for students coming and going at start and dismissal, how to set up a schedule that accounted for students with resource times and intervention times, how to organize my classroom, how to set up procedures for absolutely everything in an elementary classroom, and so much more. Jill taught me, by example, how to work successfully with special needs children, how to diffuse problematic situations, and how to differentiate to accommodate a classroom of students with so many needs. Although Jill was 2 years from retiring, she came in early and stayed late to see me through that first year in 5th grade. Jill Manley is the reason I made it through that year. Period. |