#Reflection

Today I participated in #westedchat and #worldgeochat.

I look forward to both of these Twitter chats - they rejuvenate me and help me refocus on what I want to redo for next year. I teach ELA, Reading, Spelling, Geography and US History. I find that it's good to have my Seventh grade most of their day because we can change up what we are doing within my scheduled time.

I reflect on an hourly basis, but taking time in the Summer helps see the bigger picture for the coming school year. I know what standards I need to teach, but how to get them done are always a bigger question.

The new Seventh-grade class is always a challenge - I've not had these students, so I don't know for sure what we can accomplish right from the start. Next year, the Eighth graders will be familiar, but some despise history, that I want to come up with new ways to get them engaged. (Hence, the Summer reading and rereadings - #TLAP, Top 20 Teachers, Wooden, They Call Me Coach, and any other books I grab onto!)

I also know that PBL will be a bigger part of my classroom in the coming year. I like students leading the learning: with me as a support.

In order to help my new students go from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, I am going to restart the class based off the book Top 20 Teens. I use quite a few of these ideas in my teaching, but the students who read a copy of it -- and followed it said that it really did help! (Some read it as my "self-improvement" book genre requirement.)

SIDE NOTE:
Since I also teach ELA, I started a hybrid of Donalyn Miller's program. Most of our school does AR reading for 25% of the grade: I switched, but couldn't just say "read." I started Reader's Notebooks, genre requirements per quarter, parent reflection questions, and participation points for reading in class. I also set that for the 25% grade that each student could read 5 books. I set large requirements for these five per quarter, most the requirements were a genre or a general type of book: each quarter had several choice books. For instance, we were doing a Holocaust unit in Geography, so one was a Holocaust book.

So, the first book we will do is Top 20 Teens, then we can also blog and reflect on the lessons within it.

That will hopefully lead to a more "risk taking" group: I'll support, I'll keep learning, I'll keep reflecting. I'll take risks: there will be failures: I will see them as FIRST ATTEMPTS IN LEARNING. :)