Being that I am on Spring Break, I have happily put all my goals on hold even though I have to admit this in front of all my classmates. I am enjoying my break and thinking about the work that I have to return to but promised my children breaks are breaks and that is important. Although that is not our lesson this week, I will advise those that do not have children yet that this is a very valuable goal to make for yourself. My first years of teaching I could never imagine being able to be an effective and good teacher and an effective and good mother, I felt I could be great at one or the other but not both. Through the years though I have learned the greatest part of life is being able to balance life and work and in the long run, I think, now, I am the best teacher I have ever been and a self proclaimed best mom in the world!!!!
What I have learned though through looking at the NETS-T standards and NETS-S standards is that we do not do enough in my professional circle to support these. If you are not in a graduate class right now it is not stressed very much. The state has required proficiency tests but I have yet to see anyone suffer a consequence from not meeting this goal, so I wonder how seriously we are trying to achieve these standards. I can say that in South Carolina, I have started to see these standards incorporated into classroom curriculum specifically in elementary and language arts but not really with mathematics yet.
For the next prompt, I AM NOT READY TO SET NEW GOALS!!! I am seriously working towards finding and creating technology based lessons for all of the standards for sixth grade math and now fifth grade math as I may switch to a fifth grade position in an elementary school next year. (Wish me luck, I should be interviewing next week!) I want to finish this and I want to get proficient using the data from USATESTPREP.com to benefit my students. One thing I learned through this process is to not underestimate the importance of a good partner that you can relate to and work well with and one that does not necessarily always agree with you. Having Joanna as my partner these past few weeks has forced me to stay on task and to define some of my objectives for good activities. There have been activities that I thought would be great but after she looked at it, she agreed it looked cool and cute but was not sixth grade standards and not meeting our goal. Your partner needs to be confident to correct and critique you and you do the same, this is how we grow!!!
I hope you all had a break this past month too and if you did you enjoyed it. I am off to watch the dolphins jump in the Gulf of Mexico from a Condo in St. Petersburg, Florida. My heart aches for those of you up North cold enough to get snow this week. More power to you … I can not do the cold!!!
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Lori,
ReplyDeleteI frequently visit Kathryn Arnold's website. She has good stuff for math that you may want to check out.
Here's my bookmarking link. It may have something you can use. I've been trying to "beef" it up to help the colleagues at my school. http://delicious.com/halftank33
Have a nice break!
Allan
Halftank
James M. to Lori
ReplyDeleteHi Lori, Enjoy your break, well deserved, the Cherry blossoms are just coming out in Korea where I live, spring is finally here.
A thank you to Allan for sharing his delicious site. I too may one day go from grade 6 to Elementary, great to have those resources.
When you were mentioning, "not to underestimate the importance of a good partner" I thought you meant your spouse? Which is really important to have that support too, but in the classroom you really need a supportive teaching partner, someone who is courageous as you in trying new things, but also one who is a "critical friend" and ask the question, "What is the purpose of this" will it make it better?
enjoy the dolphins
James
Hello James an Allan,
ReplyDeleteOh yes James, I agree a spouse is the most important partner but yes in my poat I was referring to our classroom partners.
I think anywhere in life when we can have that helpful yet caring person looking out for our best interest ... it can only be a blessing!!!
Allan -- thanks for sharing Kathryn Arnold's site again and your list -- always looking for new stuff!!!!
And the dolphins were great! My daughter and I sat quietly on the rocks on a jetty and they were jumping about ten feet in front of us! VERY EXCITING!!!
LORI POWERS :)