First Quarter Struggles & Successes

First quarter ended last week, which means I am a quarter of the way through my first year of teaching! The end of the quarter was stressful. I set two-week deadlines for assignments at the beginning of the quarter. However, when students came to me at the end of the quarter asking what they could do to improve their grades, I fell back on my word. I don't want to fail so many students. I want to be empathetic and give them a chance to turn in large assignments, even though I know they missed them because they were not paying attention or didn't even come to class.

For second quarter, I'm turning over a new leaf. I am making a conscious effort to grade assignments the week they are due so that students know when they have missing assignments (I mean, I'm sure they already know, but now they really know). I am adding comments to every missing assignment that say something along the lines of "permanent missing if not turned in by (date)." I have been doing well with it so far. I am hoping this will save me a lot of time as the quarter goes on.

I am also trying to keep on top of checking when students have skipped my class. Unfortunately, class cutting is common at my school, but I am going to try to take the time to reach out to parents when students are skipping class and letting them know that they cannot make up the assignments they missed.

Overall, my goal this quarter is to work on organization and become more comfortable in my teaching position. I have had issues with time management lately. I'm falling so far behind in my curriculum and I am struggling to keep up with my responsibilities. I am the type of person that puts my all into anything I do, so lesson planning, grading, and organizing have taken up most of my time. Teaching has taken so much of my energy and I feel burned out. I have been so focused on being a good teacher that I have not been a good student.

As far as scheduling goes, I have just been taking things one day at a time and doing what feels right in the moment. However, I need to start giving myself a more structured schedule. I am a little behind my colleagues in algebra 2, so I feel like I need to play catch-up a little bit.

Despite all my struggles these past couple months, I have taken the time to plan some amazing end-of unit projects. My algebra 2 students just finished the unit on quadratic functions, so I had them do an Angry Birds project (inspired by Mr. Orr is a geek). The project went over very well. I had several students tell me that "(they) love projects!" I feel especially accomplished because the project resonated with one of my students with autism. He loves Angry Birds, so he went all out with this project. I have struggled to reach him in the past, so this felt like a huge success to me.
I hope to incorporate more projects into each unit as the school year goes on!

Angry Birds Project by Student A (with autism)

Angry Birds Project by Student B

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Trying to Meet the Needs for All Learners

I have learned a lot over the past couple months. There have been many ups and downs. I'm still adjusting to managing so many students at one time, but there are a couple kids that stand out. One student in particular, let's call him E, has been on my mind a lot lately. He is very talkative and has trouble focusing. E is retaking this class, so it is important that he passes. He is a very talented baseball player, so I have been getting some support from the baseball coach. We are trying to encourage E to stay on task and and complete his work. The coach has been taking away his phone and giving him a pep talk every day before my class. I have sat E in a seat in the front of the classroom. My goal is that by sitting him in the front next to people who will not talk to him, he will not get distracted as easily. It has been working alright. We have a few successes here and there, but he still fights me sometimes.

The class with E is just difficult in general. I have a couple students with IEPs in that class. One of them has a specific learning disability, who we will call S. S is a sweet student, but he has trouble staying on task. He has barely turned in any of his work and I have had to call home a couple times in regards to disruptions. Lately, I feel like I am flying by the seat of my pants when planning lessons, so it can be difficult to for me to differentiate for so many unique learners.

However, I am getting better at building relationships. E might not like me very much right now, but I know he is the talkative, popular type. It helps so much to just come over and have a 5 minute conversation with him at the beginning of class or during the time that everyone is coming back from lunch. For S, I have placed him in the front of the classroom so I can check-in with him frequently. For example, yesterday I stopped by his desk to answer any questions he had and he actually told me that "This is easier than (he) thought!" He also told me that he understands Xs better than parentheses when multiplying, so I am trying to get out of my parentheses habit for him.

All of my kids are so sweet, even the "problem" ones. I just need to take the time to build relationships with them. At this point, I feel like I know my students pretty well. Some students just need more one-on-one time with me. As I move forward, I need to be more purposeful and deliberate with my differentiation. It has been a struggle for me. Especially because I was the student that always did well in a traditional classroom environment. However, these kids deserve for me to try my hardest to tailor my teaching to them. I need to do all that I can to make sure that they have the best learning experience possible.

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