Behind my Wyoming neighborhood, where the Oregon Trail comes through.
Earlier in the year, an experienced teacher and parent asked me “With the baby, doesn’t this feel like your first year of teaching all over again?” I hadn’t thought of it that way before, but yes! It did feel that way. And just like my first year of teaching, I have learned a lot about what it means to be a good educator.
Here is the summary of how I did on my 4th Quarter goals.
Assessment – I will work to deliberately define for students what they are expected to learn.
Progress: I continued to develop and use the unit outlines in U.S. History. These were helpful in keeping me on track when other topics tempted me. (“Liz, you don’t have time to teach everything about the Vietnam War.” But it’s all important! Haha!) I think these will also be helpful when I go back to teach these units again. I will continue to use this strategy, but with more of an emphasis on student use. I may also tweak them from an outline to some other formats I’ve seen.
Feedback – I will provide students with more informative, specific and timely feedback.
Progress: I felt that things went a little better here this quarter, but I will always continue to work on this area. I began utilizing more formative and summative assessments. Since I feel to strongly about the importance of good feedback, I will be making this my main focus when I get back into the classroom.
Parental Communication – I will communicate more regularly with parents by calling or communicating by email with a minimum of 20% this quarter.
Progress: I had some great conversations with parents that I believe benefited my students. While I didn’t meet my quantified goal, I feel pretty good about the communication that I did have. I always think of a former colleague who called every student’s parents at least twice a semester. This is something I would like to do in the future. Parent communication is an important facet of feedback and I will continue to strive to improve in this area.
Efficiency – I will become more efficient with my planning time, feedback, and various other responsibilities while maintaining quality standards.
Progress: I reorganized the class calendars in FirstClass to be easier to follow and use. I need to carve out an uninterruptible time to make sure they are all updated daily. I have started to do research on using Moodle instead of FirstClass since the later just doesn’t seem to be user-friendly enough for my students. I spent a lot of time correcting confusion on how to use FirstClass. The Instructional Facilitators were great about setting up times to plan with me, since I do big picture planning better in a collaborative environment. I was able to give students feedback more frequently by focusing on grading small amounts more frequently rather than large marathon grading sessions. I had good conversation with Molly Smith on Twitter, who pointed out “kids need prompt not perfect feedback,” because it keeps you and your students better informed.
Overall – As I mentioned earlier, I learned a lot this year about being a better teacher. With so many new things going on in my life, it did feel like I was first year teacher again. It was good for me to see things from a new perspective and to struggle through challenges I’d already conquered in a different context. This is due in no small part to my amazing colleagues, both online and offline. I am thankful for all of you.
Next Time Around – Due to my relocation to Oregon, I am unsure when I will be in the classroom again or where it will be (Apply for my fantastic job in Wyoming!). However, I wanted to document that my focus for future teaching endeavors will be on quality feedback. I believe this is the heart of good teaching and learning and there needs to be a continuous conversation between teacher and student.
I just wanted to take a moment and thank Molly Smith, Shawn McCusker, Jamie Josephson, and Analiese Smith for a great conversation we had on Twitter regarding reflection. It gave me a lot to think about and I appreciate your insights.
Not All Who Wonder Are Lost 