Halfway through my first year of teaching!!

Well, these 2 ice days last week really messed up the plans I had made before break. I wanted to complete our book and test on it, and now that is not going to happen. I am going to spend one day finishing up this week, 2 days on a study guide and then give the students a big quiz. I have been really busy lately trying to get my research plan lined up. I know I want to focus on student engagement. I think I want to further focus on the effects of goal setting, conferencing, and self reflection to see how that improves student engagement. I found a ton of good articles and some really good surveys and checklists for anecdotals to get me started. I have just noticed lately that I am finally becoming really relaxed in the classroom. I feel that after my formal observation was over, that was suddenly a huge weight off my shoulders. I havent used any other technology lately other than my projector and the calculators. It's been so busy, and I have just been trying to get through these lessons before we leave for Christmas break. I have been doing something interesting though lately: I have been taking down the names of students who do not turn in their homework and I have been keeping them for lunch detention. I am amazed at how the number of students has decreased!!!! On Monday I had over 10 students and I only had 3 on Friday. They have been doing so much better at turning in homework because of that punishment. After Christmas I am really going to start focusing on MAP practice more.

3 weeks until Christmas already!?!?!?!?!

Time is flying as we are mid-way through our "Comparing and Scaling" book. We are currently studying ratios, fractions, percents, and differences as ways to compare different forms of data. We are looking at news data and newspapers to discuss different ways of expressing statistics. We are also looking at the different ways that advertisers use to sell their product. Next week, I am taking my students into the computer lab. They will be looking at different statistics and tables. They will have to make a 'quiz' for a partner student by looking at the information on these tables. They will then trade papers and the students will have to look up the data. They will have to answer the questions based on the data they find. This gives the students a chance to look up things that interest them such as sales on a particular video game or CD. They can look up sports statistics on their favorite teams or the girls could look up information for their favorite store at the mall. The students will have to include the web url and give some background info about the site. I am really excited to see the students 'work backwards' from the assignments they normally complete.