Sunday, August 29, 2010

Week 1 Reflections Jr. High

The first weeks of school are always difficult, but this last week seemed to be even harder than normal. For reasons out of my control I didn't have much time to get mentally prepared for this school year and I have felt extremely lost so far. Here are a few things I need to work on:

1) I need to continue using my planning time for planning classes and thinking about students. I know this sounds obvious, but I spend a lot of time "helping" others with their technology and sometimes it takes up too much of my time.

2) I suck at "hurry up and wait". Not sure what I can do about this except smile more.

3) Team teaching is not something to enter into lightly, especially if there is no opportunity to plan with the teacher you will be working with. I am taking lead this week, the other teacher is actually the expert in the field. I should know a lot more about how well this is going to work very soon.

4) I was very active in trying to develop relationships with my students, especially the new students. I need to keep this up. When I am with the students I need to be actively engaged with them.

5) It is really nice to have a group of students that have been with me for several years. There was no awkward time when we were trying to get to know each other. It was one thing that really helped me keep from stressing out last week.

Next week's goal:

I am teaching math for the first time in about 8 years. I want very much to make the time I teach (this is the co-teaching class) a learning experience for all the students. I am going to find real world situations where using angles is important.

16 comments:

Jonathan Ferrell said...

I also teach angles to my sixth graders. Finding real world practical ways for using angles has always been a weak point for me. I would love to hear some of the examples/problems that you come up with for your class.

Here is a link to our resource page on angles. Feel free to steal anything from there!

http://mrferrell.pbworks.com/Classifying+Angles+-+Resource+Page

Wm Chamberlain said...

Jonathan, thanks for the link. You have a great set of links on you wiki site.

Lisa Taylor said...

Mr.C, I hope your first week went well,at least it sounded very eventful.The sound of co-teaching a class sounds very interesting and challenging at the same time.I was glad to hear you are teaching math.I am a math education major.I will talk to you very soon to see how it is going.

Darlene Staimpel said...

My name is Darlene Staimpel and I am in Dr. Strange's EDM310 class at the University of South Alabama. I have been assigned to your blog this week. I have enjoyed reading your reflection! It sounds like you are on the right track!! Feel free to visit my blog http://staimpeldarleneedm310.blogspot.com/

Donna Gill said...

My name is Donna Gill & I am in Dr. Strange's EDM310 class at South Alabama. Your blog was my assignment for C4T this week so I felt like I should share my thoughts on your most recent blog. I think that making a list of goals and/or things to work on is great. I know it always helps me when I can visually see what it is that I need to work on & do. Also, i think that using practicality in teaching angles is a very excellent idea. I think that students when they are young, are more of visual learners. So relating their learning to the real world is a great idea. I hope this goes well with your students.

Ryne Baxter said...

My name is Ryne Baxter and I am in Dr. Strange's EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. I have been assigned to read your blog over the next couple of weeks. I like that you are trying to develop relationships with all your students, I think that is very important to do as a teacher. Also good luck with the co-teaching class, it sounds very interesting. You can visit my blog here

Stephanie Belletty said...

Mr. C, I am in EDM 310 at the University of South Alabama. I liked your thoughts on how to get prepared for the first week of school! Good luck on finding ways to relate angles to real world events!

Mr. Rease said...

Hi Mr. C, I’m a student at University of South Alabama in EDM310 and I’ve been reading your blog. I really enjoyed reading this post, it was very insightful. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about your first few weeks of school and how difficult it has been thus far. I hope you are able to get everything running smoothly soon.

Ms. C McCain said...

Mr. Chamberlin,

My name is Caitlyn Lord and I am also a student of Dr. Strange's EDm 310 course. I have been assigned to your blog this week as well as three weeks ago. The last time I was assigned to comment on your blog, I commented on your post about the SNL video. I wish you had posted since then because I really enjoy visiting your blog. But luckily, I follow you on Twitter.

Today, I read your post above, and I really enjoyed it. I also find it very helpful to make lists for things that need improvement. I typically catch a lot of grief because I'm somewhat anal about lists. But, they help me to visualize what i need to do. I keeps me much more organized than I would be without the lists. I wish you the best of luck this year, and I hope you continue to make lists to help you become a better teacher. Desiring to do better both in and out of the classroom, shows that you genuinely care about your students. I have tremendous respect for educators who have a passion for their profession.

So please, keep up the great work,
Caitlyn

Kiara Blackmon said...

Hi,

My name is Kiara and I am in Dr. Strange's EDM310 class. I love how you reflected on your week and identified some of the things that you need to do. As a future teacher, this is very helpful and important to me. Planning is one of the things that I am not that good at, and also following through with my plans are hard sometimes. I would greatly appreciate any comments or tips.

Thank you

Kiara Blackmon said...

Here is the link to my blog

http://blackmonkiaraedm310.blogspot.com/

blaforce said...

My name is Brent LaForce and i am assigned to comment on this blog for Dr. Strange's EDM310 Class. I am sure that the year was less stressful as it went further on, and I hope it was a good first semester and this one to come is even better. You can visit my blog at anytime at:http://laforcebrentonedm310.blogspot.com/

Sheena Nettles said...

Hello Mr. C! It is Sheena Nettles again from Dr. Strange's EDM 310 class at University of South Alabama. I really enjoyed reading your week 1 reflection. You gave a very good discription of what teaching is all about. I am a substitute teacher for 4 different school districts. I love my job, but I also see how difficult that being a teacher can be. Teachers have a very huge responsiblity. Therefore, I totally understand how difficult it is your first week of teaching. I hope that everything will get better for you. Thanks you so much for sharing your experience and thoughts about teaching.

Fill free to comment on my blog:nettlessheenaedm310.blogspot.com

Kim said...

So...how did the year go? I am a teacher and I always love those first weeks of school. We are so reflective and full of goals. Then the year takes on a pace that seems to roll over us.

I think your goal to keep developing relationships with your students is such an important thing. The older I get I realize that seeing the student as an individual is so important. If we accomplish this we are already ahead.

As the summer passes, and you start another year, do this again. Start out with the highest hopes, and cut yourself a lot of slack as the year passes. Surviving everyday is a great feat in itself.

Kim said...

In this post,you left a note to the EDM310 class that we could choose another teacher to comment on because you don't post very often. Oh Mr. Chamberlain, don't be so hard on yourself. I wanted to place a comment. These important thoughts that come when your mind is clear and your heart is full of all the things you want to achieve over the year. I think these thoughts could be extremely useful as you start yet another year. You can ask himself, "How did I do with that?"

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