The first day got pushed back due to the Holy Fire burning near a nearby community. Many staff members were under mandatory evacuation, and the air quality was so low that many of the surrounding districts were forced to close. So instead of starting today, Thursday August 9, we're starting on Monday, August 13. So, instead of talking about the first week of school, it's the week leading up to the first week of school.
Our district-wide professional development was lead by the wonderful folks at CUE, with an awesome keynote by Jon Corippo about how there's no such thing as average. Averages tell us about the group, but never about individuals. This was definitely something I needed to hear, because my state test results were not what I was hoping for, on average, but looking at individuals was inspiring. We played a Quizizz on Nintendo, and I'm totally going to use Quizizz multiples times in a lesson. Students have always tried to "do better" by logging back in and it creates a headache for me, but I'd never considered having them do it once, close it out, then start it again to give them another chance. I love this!
We also had differentiated breakout sessions, which I love, because each teacher was able to choose a topic that would be beneficial for them, instead of the one-size-fits-all that we had last year. I signed up early and was able to snag a spot with Jon Corippo again, learning about some of the Eduprotocols that he's Twitter famous for. It was very engaging and I can see the benefits of many of the protocols in my classroom. Oh, and everyone in the district got a copy of the Eduprotocols book, so even though there wasn't a math focus in the class, there are math examples in the book. Win-win! The part that hit me was the fact that many teachers teach with no cohesion, and that has definitely been me the past few years. I'm so glad to have a better plan, because I'm so excited for what's to come this year.
When I got home, my order of stickers for Girls Who Code came in! I'm so excited, I tried to start a club towards the end of the year last year but no one came, so I'm going to start it from the beginning of the year during club rush. All who join are going to get at least one of these stickers that they can decorate their Chromebooks or whatever they choose with.
I didn't take pictures during our school meeting Tuesday, but the focus was on how we've been inspired by people, the fact that we do inspire our students, as reminders of what we do what we do, and also on building relationships with our coworkers. We got time to work in our classrooms, which is always a plus, and I got up my new posters I made. My goal this year is to call my students "mathematicians" instead of saying "ladies and gentleman" like I have. I've wanted to get away from ladies and gentleman for equity reasons, but haven't found anything that feels natural to me. "Mathematicians" I think will be slightly cumbersome and awkward to start with, but I'm sure I'll get used to it in no time thanks to the posters to remind not only me but the students.
Wednesday, the whole day was dedicated to working in our rooms.
We also had differentiated breakout sessions, which I love, because each teacher was able to choose a topic that would be beneficial for them, instead of the one-size-fits-all that we had last year. I signed up early and was able to snag a spot with Jon Corippo again, learning about some of the Eduprotocols that he's Twitter famous for. It was very engaging and I can see the benefits of many of the protocols in my classroom. Oh, and everyone in the district got a copy of the Eduprotocols book, so even though there wasn't a math focus in the class, there are math examples in the book. Win-win! The part that hit me was the fact that many teachers teach with no cohesion, and that has definitely been me the past few years. I'm so glad to have a better plan, because I'm so excited for what's to come this year.
When I got home, my order of stickers for Girls Who Code came in! I'm so excited, I tried to start a club towards the end of the year last year but no one came, so I'm going to start it from the beginning of the year during club rush. All who join are going to get at least one of these stickers that they can decorate their Chromebooks or whatever they choose with.
I didn't take pictures during our school meeting Tuesday, but the focus was on how we've been inspired by people, the fact that we do inspire our students, as reminders of what we do what we do, and also on building relationships with our coworkers. We got time to work in our classrooms, which is always a plus, and I got up my new posters I made. My goal this year is to call my students "mathematicians" instead of saying "ladies and gentleman" like I have. I've wanted to get away from ladies and gentleman for equity reasons, but haven't found anything that feels natural to me. "Mathematicians" I think will be slightly cumbersome and awkward to start with, but I'm sure I'll get used to it in no time thanks to the posters to remind not only me but the students.
Wednesday, the whole day was dedicated to working in our rooms.
The supply bins have pencils, sponge glue, table folders, colored pencils, small sticky notes, regular sized sticky notes, and 4 different colored highlighters. We'll be doing the 100 numbers activity on the first day of school, and I'm so excited for the potential for my students to be so engaged in math the very first day they are in my classroom. It'll be a great way to introduce the procedures I'm implementing this year. One of which I haven't blogged about, but I put one of the group roles on each of the desks, so students will know what their job is each day. I'm also going to be using Flippity's random name picker, which I can use to either assign specific groups or specific roles for students.
There are more things I wanted to get done, but 4 o'clock came and I wanted to get home to my family and rest before the first day of school, so I figured I did everything that had to be done for the first day, I'd take care of the rest later.
Of course, now school has been cancelled for today and tomorrow, and the first day should be Monday. I probably would have stayed longer if I had known. The messages to stay home weren't confirmed until just after 8 though.
Nevertheless, I'm excited to try new things this year. I have great hopes for the mathematical communities we'll be building.
Comments
Post a Comment