Friday, September 9, 2011

Week in Review

This week was a busy one in teaching. In hindsight, I am feeling very upbeat about how classes are going, even though as a new teacher in the system I still feel a certain amount of self-doubt daily.

It's getting better. I have kids coming up to me and saying that they think the class is going very well for them; I am at least one to two weeks ahead in planning lessons; so far the kids have done very well on their first quizzes; and I feel like kids are learning a good amount of relevant mathematics in spite of the IB "pressure."

Things are also going very well with my colleagues as well. I have not yet asked people to observe me on specific classroom skills, but this year I've had an unprecedented amount of people inside my room because they're there to provide push-in support to specific kids with learning or language issues. For the first time ever, I have language specialists looking over my quizzes and providing me with a revised copy of simpler language for my ELL kids! Amazing!

And, I am excited about getting around to some project-y type things. :) First up is next week, when we will be building tetrahedral kites in Grade 8 and modeling the pattern using a quadratic equation. --I can't wait!!

Another thing on the (distant) horizon is the possibility of going away on a math team trip in February. My colleague said that there are good networking possibilities this way, and I can meet a lot of great European "maths" teachers who are very experienced in the IB curriculum. That sounds fabulous...

Anyway, enough blabbage. You can grab my weekly lessons here. Save the link; I'll keep replacing it with new lessons each week, so that if you are a math teacher and want some resources, you can always grab at my latest lessons at any time.

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