A Quiet Day to Reflect

Today is our last day before finals begin. So students are taking their last unit test of the year. It is very quiet and this has given me a day to just reflect on the year. It has been a great year overall: students were engaged and eager to learn, friendly students, sometimes a bit hyper, but never down right disrespectful. A lot of personalities. At the beginning of the year I was learning names very quickly but never felt connected to the 170 students in my 6 classes. So I implemented 1-minute check-in's between myself and every student every week. Each week they would find time in class, before or after school even in the halls to talk to me for 1 minute about science or anything they may be struggling with in my class. This was amazing, behavior instantly got more focused and on-task, and the classroom became more of a community. I have really gotten to know every one of my students.

My standing desks came in October so they changed the dynamic of the class pretty quickly after that. There has always been flexible seating but with the addition of the standing desks there are now more options, round tables and slate tables as well. The flow of the class is more fluid and natural. However, next year I plan on giant cushions, a giant floor rug and several stools and bouncy balls to add even more dimension and choice. I plan on utilizing more of the room next year, getting rid of my bulky teacher desk and making more of the room accessible to my students. I will enlarge my makerspace by having different stations set up around the room, thus being able to access it from both sides of the table- like a buffet. Finally, design wise my interactive word wall will become more prominent in every lesson.

Differentiation was high this year as I taught all three levels, next year I will not have any academic classes and so I will adjust my lessons to be more student-centered and collaborative. I am a very student-centered room but not 100% and my goal is to give even more control over to my students. Get them to create more podcasts, keep a class blog and even create tutorials for struggling students. I have a lot of room to improve and continue to go to as much professional learning as I can, read the many educational books on my shelf and continue to use Edcamps, debates, conference and summits as well as PBL to enhance learning for my students.