Sometimes our "resolutions" come from the admin, or are the action point take-away from a graduate class. My resolutions are neither; they are simply things that I have mulled over and think I want to try to incorporate to be a better teacher.
1. I resolve to begin class with time for students to review notes, re-read from the text, study flash cards, or converse with a neighbor about what we are studying. I have been doing bellringers since the beginning of the year. It's a battle I'm tired of losing. The A+ kids do the bellringers, with no prompting, and that's why they have A+s. Other students drag out the allotted 5 minutes with pencil sharpening, looking for the bellringer page, sitting in their seats doing nothing because they don't know or care to find answers, or engaging in general goofing off behavior. I'm excited to try something different. It will take modeling, consistency, and patience to get my 6th graders in the habit of doing the bellringer alternative, but I'm up for the challenge!
2. I resolve to give my students time during class to interact with peers. 6th graders are mostly social creatures. Even my quiet kids quietly like to talk to their friends when given the chance. We all know the think-pair-share technique. I forget to use it! So I'm going to try to do better. I have a game I use called "Talk a Mile a Minute." It's similar to the $250,00 Pyramid game show, where you try to get a person to guess a word or phrase by describing the word. I broke that out before Christmas, and the kids begged to play. Why not give them more of what they like so that they will learn?
3. I resolve to give students more choice in their assignments. I know, this can be a pain. Uniformity is so much easier than choice. But I can manage to give them a choice every once in a while. Crossword puzzle or draw a cartoon? Design a poster or write a personified story? I like having choices, so I need to offer different assignments from time to time. Not every day, not every assignment, but I think I can manage once a unit!
4. I resolve to explain, at least once per unit, how what students are learning relates to real life: a job, their health, the economy, whatever I can find in the news. This is easier said than done with some units. Studying cells? Easy- we're all made of cells, and you can pull in lots of illnesses or diseases to make a connection. Plate tectonics? A bit more difficult if you live in the Midwest, but still doable. There is the New Madrid seismic zone out there. The differences between homogeneous and heterogeneous mixtures? Harder, but you'll have to get past the hilarity of the word "homogeneous" first. I am up for this challenge!
5. I resolve not to lose my cool when students tell me they don't have a pencil 15 minutes after we have started class, and already done two writing activities. I will bite the bullet and buy $20 worth of pencils before I go back to school, and mark them with duct tape flags. I will have a bucket of ten sharpened pencils. I will have another bucket for dull pencils to go into. There will be no disruptive pencil sharpening as I teach my mini-lessons! I will have my two daily helpers make sure all pencils are returned at the end of class, and they alone can sharpen the dull pencils. I will win the war on pencillessness!
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That's the plan anyway! And if I've learned anything in my 16 years of teaching, it's always have a plan.
To view a compilation of FREE teaching resources, check out this board on my Pinterest account!
https://www.pinterest.com/kaichar/middle-school-freebies/
~C.
UPDATE: Three weeks into the new semester, I am happy to report that my new pencil-checking-out system has been a HUGE SUCCESS! I started with a dozen pencils, and as of today, I still have...a dozen! Not one lost or stolen! The erasers are pretty much gone; one was broken and is now taped together; a kid almost took off with a pencil, but remembered to bring it back when he got to his next class. It's these little successes that make my day!
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