I've started a good dozen different blog topics, uploaded pictures, but keep coming back to this one.
It's almost March, which means we're in the final stretch of the school year. It's been a wonderful year with my students, but I can't help but to zoom in on some of the challenges I've faced this year.
Pacing
I disagree with our grade level chair on pacing and classroom practices. His strategies work for him and he's a great teacher, but his methods don't work for me.
He's also used to doing a bulk of the work for the grade level, which I'm sure has been a shift for him to include others in planning decisions.
However, we made the long range plans last year and I just sort of agreed to what had been always done. I didn't feel a sense of ownership because I was new to the grade level.
Being new to the grade level and having student teachers were an adjustment as well.
However, now that I'm feeling more comfortable with the third grade material, I think it's time to take a closer look at the long range plans. For me, it was something that was just completed as quickly as possible to check off a box on a list from admin. I didn't feel a sense of ownership and I rarely, if ever, looked at them.
That mindset isn't really helpful.
So I've begun drafting out my long range plans for next year but I'm making them more meaningful to me. I'm including hyper links to ideas, pinterest images, mentor text ideas, and put in a weekly social studies or science focus.
I also hope to get to create my own schedule next year. The provided one (language/writing/math/lunch/reading/specials/reading/computers) isn't really working for me. I know I can't change specials or lunch, but I'd like to start my day with computers/RTI instead of leaving it for the end of the day.
Math
I've done a good job with having my students take daily multiplication tests to track their fluency and progress towards mastery, but I don't like the tracking system I've been using. I also need to change how I have the forms organized. I also need to change the pacing to reflect NCTM's suggested guide: 1, 2, 10, 5, 0 (and so forth) as well as remove the expectation for 11s and 12s. I also need to do more math games that focus on skip counting before introducing the timed tests.
I've also incorporated more math stations into review days and practice tests before the real test, but there's still work to do.
I'm toying with the idea of station teaching for math next year.
5-10 minutes: hw check, number talk, multiplication fluency, entrance ticket
Station time: ( 3 daily stations for 20 minutes each)
1) With teacher for explicit instruction
2) computers/iPads/ST Math or math center (review/extension)
3) partner practice (on previous day's skill)
5-10 minutes: closure, discussion, hw distribution
Writing and Reading
I haven't been thrilled with my writing instruction (because it's the hardest subject to teach), so that was one subject I really put my best effort into this year. I've tried new strategies, explicitly included language lessons (rather than passively bringing it up), and used rubrics for every prompt (most of which were created with the students). We've done more publishing (typing) than ever before and I branched out with google docs.
However, all that intentional writing came at a price. I haven't done a read aloud with my students this year. I plan to re-start the one we did in October. I'm struggling to find the time. I haven't done a lot of work with syllable types and creating multi-syllabic words, due to time.
I'm not sure how to plan moving forward. I unfortunately don't always have the support from my grade level. I don't always work with people who pull their fair share of the work load, which is frustrating. As people, I like them all very much. As colleagues...there's some work to do. We are looking at the possibility of eight third grade teachers (yikes!) so realistically this would break down to two planning teams of 4.
I'm excited to try some new strategies next year, but am going to try and field test them this year. Fingers crossed!
