June 9, 2013

The school year is over. Exams and grading are up next but there is nothing to worry about there.

So my personal review of the past school year.

I conducted to major inquiry projects, the black box tube project and the inquiry boxes project. Doing these were really important to me to test the merits of the entire inquiry approach. I am really happy that I tried them out and I am entirely happy with the way things went down. Each has minor tweeks in terms of presentation but they are excellent overall. 10/10 would teach again.

The class chess activity was another triumph as was the use of the daily 5 for science.

The blog will be invaluable this summer as a try to reorganize everything into a more coherent science class. It will be useful again next year as I experiment with the daily 5 for math. I did not keep up with it the whole way through but this alone represents my flagging energy levels.

I did not conduct enough feedback. the students need more indications of what is expected of them and whether or not they are meeting those expectations.

Overall a great first year filled with my own tests and explorations of teaching. I really feel that I made the most of the freedoms I had in class.

Goals for next year: Daily 5 for math and increased feedback for science class.