Reflection on Learning

I'm happy that I took the TED 633 class when I did - at the very beginning of the school year. It forced me to look deeper into the content I was teaching and to analyze every component for maximum learning. I took a lot of time going over the Extreme Sports Unit, creating new handouts, transfering lessons onto Google Classroom, and making sure all of the lessons were understandable to the students.

I've spent time this month very carefully planning out what I was teaching and how I could get my students ready for the Argumentative Essay benchmark at the beginning of October. Also, I made goals for myself for this year- what I would do different/better than I did last year. Here's my plan:

1. Do a full year of Google Classroom. Teach all students how to use Google Drive. Incorporate the student's tablets into as many lessons as possible.

2. Add onto the behavior plan, structured classroom rules I enforced last year, and tighten classroom management even more- use the new Vice Principal (who is very knowledgeable about discipline/classroom structure) as a resource. Because as I've learned - when you teach regular 9th grade classes, if you don't have discipline down pat, there will be no teaching.

TED 633 has helped me in my work in that I have had all this organized in my head, more so than last year, and when the VP asked if he could meet with me so we could (already!) plan for my formal observation/evaluation, I was totally ready! I wasn't sweating this at all. He said- okay, I need you to think out some goals for yourself for this year. Easy, I'd already done that, and I'd already started working on them and finding the resources on campus for how to implement these changes. And, when he comes in for the observation, I will feel better about being able to verbalize before and after what the my lesson entailed.

This class has helped me to feel more confident in my knowledge of teaching practices in my content area, and it has also helped me at work to "go deeper" while lesson planning. Hurray for TED 633! :)