3 Things I Want To Continue From Last Year
1. Weekly goals for failing students- this will need a bit of modification, since I'll be doing a SBG hybrid, but similar to last year, failing students will be given a slip of paper with their current failing grade and their goal grade (+5%). They have a week to meet this goal or they call home to let their parents know they're failing and will be bringing home a progress report to be signed. The slip with their goal also had a list of 1-5 assignments on which they have an F. I noticed this specific goal, deadline, and means of reacting the goal help students make progress.
2. Interactive Notebooks- my students last year LOVED the organized and predicatable set up, table of contents and flippables in their notebooks. We were constantly referencing their notebooks and looking back to old skills they needed to refresh.
3. Rotations- last year each of my classes were broken up into three groups and they rotated through the activities each day. They were grouped by ability shown on pre-test and the activities were usually spiral review, notes, and teacher time. This allowed me to work with 1/3 of each class at a time, so each student got more one on one attention and I better knew the understanding of each student.
2 New Things I Want To Try This Year
1. Standards Based Grading Hybrid- there are some assignments I still want to bear weight on their grade, so I'm not going completely SBG, but 80% of their grade will be SBG. I'm a little nervous of the workload this will add, and how to explain it to parents/students, but the concept of students/parents/me knowing what skills students need more practice with- not assignments- just seems like common sense.
2. Cornell Notes- this is a notes organization created by AVID that lends itself nicely to review/studying
1 Goal For This Year
1. My highest goal for this year is that 80% of my students meet or exceed their expected growth this year. At the beginning of the year we are given the score students need to get on the end of grade test to have made a year's worth of growth. As of right now I'll have about 85 students, half of which will be identified as gifted in math. I anticipate my biggest struggle actually being with my gifted students; when a student comes to you at the 98th percentile, that doesn't leave a lot of room for growth.
I am trying this year to link up each week with the #MTBoSChallenge. I am new to blogging (and twitter) so we'll see how this goes.
