First term finished!

I made it through the first term of teaching! It had it’s up and downs and I learned a lot. I think I know how to make next term better than this first one. I ended this term with 171 students earning a B or higher out of 186, that’s 91% of my students with a grade higher than a B.

During a new teacher collaboration we watched a video about this math teacher that grades her tests by highlighting where the students went wrong. That’s all she did was highlight the tests, no score on it, no correcting the mistake, just highlighting the step that was wrong. Then she handed them back to the students and gave them a few minutes to discuss with their neighbors why they got it wrong. I’m excited to try this way of grading, I think it will encourage more learning and less I’m stupid’s.

I’m trying this new thing called class dojo this term; I’m hoping it will help the students who talk non-stop to be quiet in class, there are a few students that no matter where you seat them they will talk.

I’ve also gotten better at keeping track of what each student needs to fix their grade, and the students are getting better at looking it up also. I think this next semester is going to be much better than the first.

Also I almost forgot, since two of my friends that I went to college with also teach at my school we are continuing a joke we played on each other at school. I got a little green rubber rat from a math teacher in college and we would put it in each other’s rooms, cars, backpacks, wherever and now we hide it in each other’s classrooms. It’s really fun, the students enjoy it also.  

This is the rat we hide

I hid the rat in Ms. Dannelly's room.

Can you spot it?