Today was the day that all AP teachers fret about... the day that the College Board releases the AP scores to the teachers. Technically they started yesterday with the Eastern time zone, but my day was today and they arrived right on schedule. Of course, I spent a huge chunk of time today pouring over the scores, analyzing their relationship to student grade, trying to figure out what I could do to be a better teacher next year. Yes, I totally know that part of the responsibility falls on the student, but that's not something I control - I can control what *I* do as the teacher, so that's what I'm going to focus on for now. :)
That reminded me of a tweet that @tbanks1906 sent out last week: What is 1 thing you plan to START doing in your class, CONTINUE doing and STOP doing this year?
Start...
I actually have two things that I plan to start doing this year. The first one is about notebooks. I've already posted about the Interactive Notebook in Algebra 2 and I am really looking forward to hearing @mgolding's talk on it at Twitter Math Camp in just a few weeks. If you're not sure about notebooks, I encourage you to go read these posts:
Interactive Notebooks by @molding
The $1 Textbook by @ultrarawr
The other thing I would like to tinker with is the idea of Whiteboarding. Kelly O'Shea posted an amazing post about it yesterday. Go read about it here:
Whiteboarding Mistake Game: A Guide by @kellyoshea
Continue...
Again, two things that I definitely plan to continue are Standards Based Grading and Active Learning. Much has been written, both on this blog and others about the benefits of SBG, so I won't rehash them here. At some point, I do need to recap how this year went with SBG in AP Stat, but needless to say, I will definitely be continuing it. As for Active Learning, I am still very concerned with the idea that many classrooms are where students go to watch teachers work. I will continue to develop strategies to make my classroom active.
Stop...
This is definitely the hardest one of these to answer, but I'm going to *try* to stop letting paper accumulate. This actually takes several different "faces". Papers to be graded, papers to be passed back, papers to be filed, papers to be recycled, papers to be shredded, papers, papers, papers! I have paper files of quiz/test masters and answer keys from 12-14 years ago sitting in my closet. Why do I have them? Because I can't let them go. I need to let them go. I have a copy of them electronically and I could always make an answer key again, but honestly my quizzes and tests are way better now and I wouldn't use those in their current form anyway, so I need to let them go.
Thanks to @tbanks1906 for a great prompt! I'm curious... what would YOU start, stop, and continue in your life/classroom?
1 comment:
I'm also a hoarder of old tests, quizzes, textbooks, and student work. I haven't touched many of them in years but they're still there.
I like this post and look forward to your post on SBG and AP Stat.
Post a Comment