On Monday of this week our second round of report cards went home and officially kicked-off spring Parent-Teacher Interview week. Being that we are a K-12 school, our K-7 teachers scheduled and organized their own meetings which ran throughout the week. In the 8-12 end, our school secretary scheduled our meetings for us which were primarily held on Thursday after school and Friday during school-hours (there were no classes on Friday). Compared to the 30+ interviews I had first semester, this round was a breeze with only 20. I think last semester I had a lot of interviews because… Read More
mRLC Backwards by Design PD
Today was a division-wide PD day for TRSD and each school was responsible for holding their own unique PD opportunity for their staff based on their school goals. At “S-School” we attended a session on Understanding by Design, sometimes referred to as “backwards planning”, “Universal Design for Learning” or “Planning with the end in mind”. Design. (2011). Uploaded to Tach @ Riverdale by Meg Krause. Available online at:http://blogs.riverdale.edu/techintegration/2011/11/26/understanding-by-design-the-backward-design-model/ The session was divided into two half-day sessions, with the morning organized in a lecture-style format regarding the ins and outs of the planning strategy, while the afternoon allowed… Read More
End of Term One Reflections & A Room Revamp
Thursday marked the last day of semester one in our division and it is pretty crazy to think that I have already completed HALF of my first year of teaching. When I look back at it I feel like I did A LOT but I also feel like it went by really, REALLY quickly. Friday was an administration day that we utilized to work on marking exams and completing report cards. Lucky for me, I marked ALL of my exams on the day they were written (Wednesday) so I was able to work on report card comments and… Read More
2 Stars & a Wish: Week 14
This past week represented my shortest teaching week this year as I was away both Tuesday and Wednesday at a math conference. While I enjoyed the PD opportunity, and learnt a lot of effective strategies, it is a lot of work to be away from your classroom for so long. I came back to what felt like chaos since my room was no longer organized to my expectations (I may be a tad OCD) and not all of my students behaved the way they do while I am present. I had several students deviate from routines and fail to hand-in… Read More
2 Stars & a Wish: Week 13
Tis’ the season! December is upon us and there is only 15 teaching days left until Christmas holidays. Technically it is even less since I am away at a conference 2 days this week and we have some spirit activities in the last week that will take away from class time. Again I fell off the reflection-bandwagon due to the craziness that is report cards & parent-teach interviews but I am committed to keeping with this! Two things that I think went well this week are: 1) Incorporating Student Suggestions in My Grade 10 Class– Shortly after report cards… Read More
My 1st Parent-Teacher Experience
On Monday of this week our first round of report cards went home and officially kicked-off Parent-Teacher Interview week. Being that we are a K-12 school, our K-7 teachers scheduled and organized their own meetings which ran throughout the week. In the 8-12 end, our school secretary scheduled our meetings for us which were primarily held on Thursday after school and Friday during school-hours (there were no classes on Friday). Thursday marked a full day of teaching from 8:50-3:30 and then straight into interviews beginning at 4. By the time I had straightened up my room and ran… Read More
Report Cards For Teachers?
When I was student teaching, I had my students complete assessments of me as a teacher. This was not something I was required to do but it was a big learning opportunity for me so I continued doing it throughout my last year of my Education Degree. I actually got the idea from Larry Ferlazzo’s blog (here is his most-recent example). When student teaching, my evaluation questions were centered around the statements/categories that were included in my evaluation checklists from my university. Now that I am out of school and have my own classroom I am not sure… Read More
Report Card Reflections
Today our Semester 1 Report Cards went home with students and I could breathe a sigh of relief. The past two weeks have been emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting as I’ve attempted to survive my first report card experience as a first year teacher. To be honest, I don’t feel like there was any one aspect that was genuinely hard (although they were time consuming). The most difficult part, for me, was making sure I actually did everything that was required of me. I felt like there was a lot of aspects that I simply wasn’t aware of, so… Read More
Making Time…
This past month has been a weird one for me as it has been the first month in almost two years where I haven’t been blogging regularly. They say that if something is important to you, you will find a way to make time for it…. My viewpoint towards my blog has not changed. In fact, my time away from my blog made me realize how much it truly meant to me. So much has been happening in my teaching-life over the past few weeks and there has been several times where I have wanted to share it with… Read More
2 Stars & a Wish: Week 9
*Unfortunately, I do not have a reflection for Week 8 as I was on a hiatus/break haha. November is upon us and reality is beginning to hit home. Number one, report cards are due in 10 days…. Number two, my first parent-teacher interviews are in 15 days… Number three, there are only 34 teaching days left until Christmas! Seriously, was it not just the first day of school last week?!? I guess the only thing to do is take a deep breathe and take one day at a time. In the mean time, here are some things that I think went… Read More