Today's blogtember challenge was related to personality typing and strengths and weaknesses.
I've taken this before, but not in a few years. I wasn't really surprised to see a change.
As of the test this morning, I'm an INFJ. This makes me a rare unicorn :) This combination is the rarest, coming in around 1% of the population.
Basically an extroverted introvert with confusing emotions.
When I need to be, I can be the most extroverted person. Since I'm a teacher, this is natural. I have an outgoing, happy face and am talking almost all day long.
However, I also need my alone time. I need my down time. I need my time to just sit and reflect. I am on the go so often that I need time to just sit and be. This desire, coupled with my (at times) outgoing personality is a weird concept to wrap my brain around but I'm glad I'm not alone. As I've grown up, I've accepted that it's okay to say no to social situations and it's okay to turn down things when I need recharging time.
The gist of my personality test:
-humanitarian
-idealist
-doer
-dreamer
-takes a disproportionate amount of responsibility
-deeply concerned with my relationships with others
-appear outgoing, but emotionally introverted
-need withdrawn alone time
-empathetic
-difficult to convey complex emotions
-strong writing skills
-academia and teaching
-liberal arts over sciences
-creative
-activist
Recommended careers: teacher, librarian, lawyer
Umm, yup. Pretty much spot on. I was pre-law before joining Teach for America. I would love to be a librarian. My college degrees are all in the liberal arts.
It was a nice, self-reflective day.
Showing posts with label self assess. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self assess. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Choices
It's the end of the year. I'm moving both classrooms and into my first home. The students are becoming increasingly squirrely with each passing day. We have one more field trip and a lot of loose ends to tie up. There is simply too much to do and not enough minutes in the day. It's frustrating that I want to give my students emotional closure on their novels and give them time to finish their books, but I'm at odds with others on this view point. I want to keep teaching as long as possible, but that's not being supported.
Our last day is Wednesday, June 4th. In my mind, that means I can realistically teach up until Friday, May 30th. I can finish novels with students, retest on assessments, and allow them to do some project based learning about their novels. With everything wrapped up by the 30th, that would allow me the weekend to grade their final projects and have scores in by Monday the 2nd. We'd use the last week of school to present our novel projects, sign yearbooks, attend our awards assembly, and reflect upon our learning for the year.
However, this is not what I'm expected to do. Every assessment is supposed to be done, and graded, by the 28th. The 28th is a full week ahead of when report cards go home.
When I expressed how busy the fifth grade has been, my words were shrugged off. In the past few weeks, we've had CRTs (standardized testing), the writing proficiency, field trips, Discovery Education testing, KIC (science inquiry project), Aimsweb end of the year benchmarks and I DRA'd seventy children. Plain and simple, fifth grade had the most work to do. Not complaining, just a statement of fact. We've been quite busy. We were not given assistance like other grade levels because sadly, blatant favoritism exists. I wish it didn't, but the favoritism is running rampant these days and I somehow found myself on the other side. Perhaps it's because I'm leaving schools. Perhaps it's because I speak my mind and stick up for myself. I am not being treated fairly at my work and it's one of the contributing factors for my change in school location. Regardless of how I'm being treated, I'm doing my best to focus on making the best instructional decisions for my students. All my choices are made to best serve the interests of those thirty one rowdy fifth graders whom I teach and adore to the best of my abilities.
I wish there was more understanding. I'm asking for time until the second (which is still days before report cards go home) not because I'm lazy. It's not because I'm being a procrastinator. It's because with everything going on, we didn't want to over test our students. We, as a grade level, felt we would get accurate results by spreading out the assessments (as best we could) and not overwhelm them by testing all day, every day. I'm asking for more time to allow students to finish their novels and give us the chance to meet about the endings. I'm not okay with just taking away their books and saying we ran out of time. That's not fair to my students. I'm not okay with depriving them of an opportunity to share about their novels and reflect on their learning throughout the year. I 'm not okay with skipping the "how we've grown as learners" end of year reflection.
My choice is to keep teaching as long as possible, even if it means I give myself an extra long weekend of grading.
My choice is to provide emotional, literary closure to my students.
My choice is to allow them time to share about their favorite books and engage in conversations about reading.
My choice is, to the best of my ability, wrap up our year together with discussions and reflections to help them grow as readers and learners.
My choice is to provide them time to think, write, collaborate, and discuss how much they've grown this year.
My choice is to allow them to feel accomplished and share their learning with others.
My choices are not approved by certain staff members.
It's disappointing that I'm not supported by fellow educators when I'm trying to make the right choices for my students.
In the end, my students are the reason I'm a teacher. I'm standing by my choices.
Our last day is Wednesday, June 4th. In my mind, that means I can realistically teach up until Friday, May 30th. I can finish novels with students, retest on assessments, and allow them to do some project based learning about their novels. With everything wrapped up by the 30th, that would allow me the weekend to grade their final projects and have scores in by Monday the 2nd. We'd use the last week of school to present our novel projects, sign yearbooks, attend our awards assembly, and reflect upon our learning for the year.
However, this is not what I'm expected to do. Every assessment is supposed to be done, and graded, by the 28th. The 28th is a full week ahead of when report cards go home.
When I expressed how busy the fifth grade has been, my words were shrugged off. In the past few weeks, we've had CRTs (standardized testing), the writing proficiency, field trips, Discovery Education testing, KIC (science inquiry project), Aimsweb end of the year benchmarks and I DRA'd seventy children. Plain and simple, fifth grade had the most work to do. Not complaining, just a statement of fact. We've been quite busy. We were not given assistance like other grade levels because sadly, blatant favoritism exists. I wish it didn't, but the favoritism is running rampant these days and I somehow found myself on the other side. Perhaps it's because I'm leaving schools. Perhaps it's because I speak my mind and stick up for myself. I am not being treated fairly at my work and it's one of the contributing factors for my change in school location. Regardless of how I'm being treated, I'm doing my best to focus on making the best instructional decisions for my students. All my choices are made to best serve the interests of those thirty one rowdy fifth graders whom I teach and adore to the best of my abilities.
I wish there was more understanding. I'm asking for time until the second (which is still days before report cards go home) not because I'm lazy. It's not because I'm being a procrastinator. It's because with everything going on, we didn't want to over test our students. We, as a grade level, felt we would get accurate results by spreading out the assessments (as best we could) and not overwhelm them by testing all day, every day. I'm asking for more time to allow students to finish their novels and give us the chance to meet about the endings. I'm not okay with just taking away their books and saying we ran out of time. That's not fair to my students. I'm not okay with depriving them of an opportunity to share about their novels and reflect on their learning throughout the year. I 'm not okay with skipping the "how we've grown as learners" end of year reflection.
My choice is to keep teaching as long as possible, even if it means I give myself an extra long weekend of grading.
My choice is to provide emotional, literary closure to my students.
My choice is to allow them time to share about their favorite books and engage in conversations about reading.
My choice is, to the best of my ability, wrap up our year together with discussions and reflections to help them grow as readers and learners.
My choice is to provide them time to think, write, collaborate, and discuss how much they've grown this year.
My choice is to allow them to feel accomplished and share their learning with others.
My choices are not approved by certain staff members.
It's disappointing that I'm not supported by fellow educators when I'm trying to make the right choices for my students.
In the end, my students are the reason I'm a teacher. I'm standing by my choices.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Just between you and me...
I'm often conflicted about what to do when students finish a test early. Most want to stand up, return their test, dividers, highlighters and grab a book to read.
In theory, this is wonderful!
However, when some of my fast finishers do this, it quickly motivates other students to rush through as well. In their rushing, they often skip questions or make careless mistakes.
So instead I've started having them reflect on their learning on the back of their tests.
I merely ask them to tell me their "clicks and clunks" or to write me a letter. I clarify that the information stays between me and them. Sometimes I let them tell me about the story they're reading, what's happening at home, etc.
Here were some responses I got after their comma test:
She's good.
She loves reading!
At least they're taking ownership of their learning!
Some other responses that aren't pictured included confusion about where to place apostrophies to show ownership. So we had a quick mini-lesson to clear up that confusion!
In theory, this is wonderful!
However, when some of my fast finishers do this, it quickly motivates other students to rush through as well. In their rushing, they often skip questions or make careless mistakes.
So instead I've started having them reflect on their learning on the back of their tests.
I merely ask them to tell me their "clicks and clunks" or to write me a letter. I clarify that the information stays between me and them. Sometimes I let them tell me about the story they're reading, what's happening at home, etc.
Here were some responses I got after their comma test:
She's good.
She loves reading!
While another went in depth about each and every subject she has in school.
At least they're taking ownership of their learning!
Some other responses that aren't pictured included confusion about where to place apostrophies to show ownership. So we had a quick mini-lesson to clear up that confusion!
Monday, February 17, 2014
Self Assessing
In my classroom, we do a lot of formative checks for understanding. Usually as part of the lesson's closure, I ask for their comfort level with the new content.
Sometimes it's as simple as thumbs up (I've got it), thumbs side ways (I'm confused) and thumbs down (I'm lost).
Sometimes they close their eyes so they can be completely honest with me...this usually happens when I get all thumbs up. Not that I'm a bad teacher, but one fifteen minute mini-lesson doesn't lead to 100% complete understanding from 31 very different students. So we try the quick response again, just with our eyes closed.
We have a lot of conversations that learning is a process and it's okay to not have mastery over a concept. We use the word yet a lot.
We also do a 1, 2, 3 or 4 finger response.
1: I'm lost, I need help. This corresponds with emerging on our proficiency scale.
2: I'm confused. I'm starting to get the material, but I have questions. This would be approaching on our proficiency scale.
3: I think I've got it. This would be meeting.
4: I know I've got it and could explain it to my parents or neighbor. This level of understanding has to be proven to me and would relate to exceeding.
I found this cute graphic on TpT:
And want it for my classroom! Perhaps I could just recreate it with my students so there is more meaning.
We also do "clicks and clunks" as lesson closure. They tell their neighbor what is "clicking" (making sense) and "clunking" (confusing). I walk around listening so I know what I need to clarify the next day.
I also have them share their clicks on the way out the door with a fist bump.
It's great that they're familiar with assessing their own understanding and being reflective on their learning. It's important for them to learn to self advocate and speak up with questions.
Sometimes it's as simple as thumbs up (I've got it), thumbs side ways (I'm confused) and thumbs down (I'm lost).
Sometimes they close their eyes so they can be completely honest with me...this usually happens when I get all thumbs up. Not that I'm a bad teacher, but one fifteen minute mini-lesson doesn't lead to 100% complete understanding from 31 very different students. So we try the quick response again, just with our eyes closed.
We have a lot of conversations that learning is a process and it's okay to not have mastery over a concept. We use the word yet a lot.
We also do a 1, 2, 3 or 4 finger response.
1: I'm lost, I need help. This corresponds with emerging on our proficiency scale.
2: I'm confused. I'm starting to get the material, but I have questions. This would be approaching on our proficiency scale.
3: I think I've got it. This would be meeting.
4: I know I've got it and could explain it to my parents or neighbor. This level of understanding has to be proven to me and would relate to exceeding.
I found this cute graphic on TpT:
And want it for my classroom! Perhaps I could just recreate it with my students so there is more meaning.
We also do "clicks and clunks" as lesson closure. They tell their neighbor what is "clicking" (making sense) and "clunking" (confusing). I walk around listening so I know what I need to clarify the next day.
I also have them share their clicks on the way out the door with a fist bump.
It's great that they're familiar with assessing their own understanding and being reflective on their learning. It's important for them to learn to self advocate and speak up with questions.
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