Reflect: (intransitive verb) to think quietly and calmly; to express a thought or opinion resulting from reflection It's Friday afternoon, and Sam Smith sings to me from Pandora, the current soundtrack for my quiet thinking. It's time to reflect. Progress come from reflection as we consider strengths and weaknesses and make changes for moving forward. The end of a quarter seems like a natural point for pause. What I have learned about myself as a teacher this quarter? 1. After several years, I still don't have a consistent method for assessing student writing. My poor College Comp students can attest to this. At the beginning of the quarter I had them turn in their writing for feedback on Google Classroom. I used the suggesting and commenting features to provide feedback, and then I would check the revision history for changes made. That became cumbersome as I switched from their document to Classroom to the gradebook, and I felt like my feedback wasn't valuable. So a few weeks ago we transitioned back to printing drafts for my written comments. Now I'm killing more trees, and I know this isn't probably the most efficient way to respond to student writing in a 2014 1:1 environment. Suggestions are welcome. 2. Teaching writing as a full-time mom is hard work. (Can I get an "amen!?") I never provide feedback as timely as I would like. I feel like we're all juggling multiple deadlines as we work on first, second, and third drafts of various papers at one time. Next quarter (and especially next semester when I have new courses) I want to include additional shorter writing assignments. It's less daunting to provide really thorough, helpful feedback to a few paragraphs versus a few pages. And of course I also need to remember that not every piece of writing is for assessment. Maybe I need to incorporate more low stakes practice to go along with our freewriting and blogs in College Comp. 3. #WWWW is worth it. This is an addition to my writing classes that I will continue to tweak in the coming months and semesters. Students deserve time to discover their own passions in writing. Yes, that means sacrificing time for other endeavors in the classroom as the clock is always ticking. I will make it happen, though. 4. Building relationships is still essential. This is an area of my teaching that has been unfortunately neglected for the last two years as I tried to figure out the balance of teacher and mom. Starting at the beginning of the year, though, I started with a simple postcard. Every week I would send a few postcards for specific students. "I really enjoy your insight when we discuss literature." "Thanks for sharing your love with reading in our class." "I look forward to knowing you more this semester." It doesn't take much time, and the reaction is worth it. I truly believe I am a stronger instruction when I know and invest in my students. That is something I need to work on more next quarter. 5. Teaching vocabulary (without the workbooks) is fun! My students have been owning more words this quarter than we have in years past. I'm still focusing on vocabulary strategies for the rest of the year, so this is an area I will continue to reflect on. Right now I think my biggest takeaway is just the simple understanding that I need to craft engaging activities that get students using new words. Looking back, I realize that I haven't been as successful at cumulative vocabulary understanding. How can I continually reference our growing list of words as we add new concepts? 6. I am in the right profession, but growth is continual. I don't think I'll ever fully arrive at my destination as a teacher. This is my ninth year in the classroom, and it's the ninth year of adding new units and trying new things. That makes this job incredibly challenging and time-consuming, and it's always why I love coming to work (most days). What have you been learning in this first quarter of a new school year?
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