PD day

I've had a few 4-day weeks lately, there is one next week as well. Too bad it's not on Monday, but 4 day weeks are relaxing. I have been wanting to get through this week more than my students wanted to only because of an exciting weekend lies ahead of me. The teaching itself is finally getting better. I think one of my classes (that I count as a class) has no one failing, a couple borderliners, but they know how to get their act in gear. A few in the other classes that have issues with their grades really dont care they are failing. As long as I've done some outside notification personally then I have done everything that I can. It is now up to them. Monday I better make some phone calls, I would do them today, but the students were not in school today, and the vision of answering the phone when it is your teacher on the other line is very shocking. So I wont risk that. It happened to me once, I almost dropped the phone. There are a couple weeks left before they can get their grade up at the end of the quarter. They can try. I had a professional development seminar today. A free tool for grading, composing lessons, contacts, etc all in one, online, and did I mention Free was what the workshop was about. It's not too bad when describing how user-friendly it is. HotChalk is the name. I might transfer my scheme of things on it starting the 4th quarter so that everything is fresh and new, nothing old. Anyways, I finally locked in on my chem students with what to teach. All along for the first few weeks I was here, I was trying to teach them some general chem that they didn't know. I would ask them at the end of class if they knew about a certain topic, if no was the answer, that was going to be what I was going to teach them for the next time I saw them. Finally I put it all together. "If the only tool you have is a hammer, treat everything as if it were a nail." - Anonymous. I am a Science teacher with a Physics background. I started teaching my chem students and have been able to stick with the same content with the last few weeks because I was teaching Nuclear Reactions with them. The lessons were easier for me and I was finding something to engage them with. It all makes sense. Next I want to teach electrochemistry, and then go over some organic chem since it touches close with the hot topics of saving the enviornment and what not. I am off to enjoy the weekend.

Relaxing Limbo

So I have it in the back of my mind to make things as easy as possible for me.  Well, I think I have that on auto-pilot.  I am planning on making this an easy week for me.  Started the week on a tuesday with a test, perhaps tomorrow will go over corrections, so that only leaves two days of new content.  Awesome!  more later.

JC

At ease

There has got to be something going wrong, because I do not feel that stressed out about anything.  I need to be observed and critiqued on how I am doing in the classroom.  The last couple weeks have been just slightly over-bearing for the students which should be where I want them.  I want to get closer to that point where it is just barely beyond their capabilities until I step in to assist them.  Overall I have great and talented students that can make it in the class if they just learned how to focus.  I am afraid they get easily lost in day-dream world or feel that they dont have to use their talents in the classroom.

Last week was mostly on Lab experiments about Newton's Laws.  Too much time was spent on Newton's 2nd Law with motion sensors, calculators, and borrowed lab equipment (almost 4 days!).  What I re-learned from this experience is to answer all questions at the end of giving instructions.  That way, I know I covered how to perform the lab in one sweep, not in multiple stages.  It could have been worse, I did spend a lot of time getting the lab room (which is still a disaster area) prepared for this, so now everyone has a spot in the physics lab, but for a tech-savvy generation, I thought they would be able to navigate through a calculator even with the directions on the board.  I still scratch my head on that one.  Newton's 3rd was a success.  There was not a lot of technology to use, and they were outside the class for the period getting physics in action.

A lil bumpy

My teaching intuition is as sharp as its going to be for the time being. I like to do a few demos in front of the class, but they seem to fall short of something exciting. I get the ones who are starting to annoy me involved. That just ends up keeping them hyper when they are back in their seat. I need something to get them to pipe down when they are supposed to. As soon as I know how a simple detention is followed through, I'll be fine. Surprisingly for a mixed culture, I am getting the same problem from various groups. I get complaints that they are thinking too much. That makes me happy whether that is good or bad for me in the end. If it is the ones who really want to give me trouble during their class, then my job is going along smoothly.
My planning is etchy, I know the major concepts I want to get across for the week, and then it breaks down when its showtime. Hopefully as the weeks progress, my planning goes exactly how it should. The good news is that my bag of tricks is still full, and the planning vs showtime difference works in my favor since I am breaking stuff down more for my students rather than jumping from one major concept to the next.

First couple of days

Alright, I taught 2 full days, then had 2 snow days to end the week, then had monday off for MLK. This job is awesome! Everyone returned tuesday a little out of control. One because of the extended weekend, and also a pep rally for the girls basketball team. I was surprised in some of the students behavior, but had a better day today. It was a regular teaching day that I do not have any complaints about. I hope its like this for the rest of the days to follow. I plan only a little bit into the future for the class, and it might haunt me if I do not plan at least a week or two into the future, but thats what I hope to accomplish on the weekends. When I am not teaching, I am trying to spend as much time as possible getting the lecture room and labs organized. This will be a while, but the students are telling me it looks so much nicer than before. My systems have been improving, and now I need to grade. More later.

I HAVE A JOB!!!

I just completed my first full day as a science instructor.
It is the middle of the school year, the second week of the new semester, and I interview at a school for an immediate science position.  At the end of the interview, the job was straight up offered to me.  How lucky can this get?
The school is close to home, really close to where I student taught. No worries, its a private school. The catch is that it is all girls, so let's re-state those worries. The teenage thinking, adolescent changing, long-term grudging type of school, and I am their science teacher. I have 3 Physical Science Courses, 1 Chemistry, and 1 Physics class. I am more concerned about the chemistry course because my background is not that strong, it barely exists.
I am fortunate to have nice classroom size for my classes, I average about 18 students per class.

My workspace is pretty amazing, and pretty messy. "Show me a clean lab station, and I will show you where no work is being done." They need to stop working for a couple days so I can organize. I have a lecture room that connects to a chem lab, and in the other direction a physics lab.  It will take forever to get everything situated the way I want it, a few of the ways I picked up in student teaching.

I tried to make it a point of how I wanted the class to be managed.  The day of the interview I met some of the students in a couple of my classes, and they were just a little out of control, today being the introductory first day, I made sure that is not to happen.  Tomorrow will be their first of many normal days in the classroom.  My goal is to achieve a balanced diet of routine between lecture, activity, book work, and something else im missing?  Someone help me out.  So far so good, I just need time for organizing, including the content so I know what I am talking about.  Nothing should be complicated after this semester.

Now What?

Ok, that chapter of my life is over, the unpaid chapter we could call it. Consider this the preface to a new chapter, if that is possible in a literature sense. Its the last friday of winter break for the school systems and I wont be going into a new school to teach on monday. What are my options? I can substitute wherever for the next couple of months. Why not? I am not tied down anywhere, and I can get a peek into different schools. I can join some tutoring group for a little while to make some small change, or go into the private sector and work in some industry not knowing what I would be doing.  Who knows?