My 8th graders graduated on Tuesday night and I miss them greatly already. I have spent the past 2 days scheduling the current 6th graders and can't help but think ahead to next year. I have found my mind wandering, focused on how can I make my lessons better!
I have to remind myself that it is still 3 months away and that I need to take time some for myself but then I think, HOLY COW 3 months to prepare! Never the less, to settle my battle, I have started to come up with goals.
Goal 1: Incorporate STEM. I know it seems like a buzzy term right now but what I want to incorporate are the ideas and the exposure to my students. The idea that math is related to other subjects often times stumps my students. How could it be? Well dudes and dudettes, it is related to other things! The other part of STEM that I like is that my students would be exposed to math in real life. I know that math is everywhere and slowly everyday I have attempted to share this with kids but if I can make the solid connections with engaging and high interest activities that focus on the process standards for science, align with the CCSS for math and the SAMR model, it's a win win for all!
Goal 2: Tweak my SBG practices. As this was the first year I followed the SBG model changes need to be made. There are some things that I really liked such as students could show progression and I knew exactly where every student's strengthens and weaknesses were at a glance but there were things I didn't like either. I need to figure out a better way to show that I care about homework but to emphasis that it is practice and get the kids to be intrinsically motivated to do it as opposed to extrinsically motivated by rewards. This is a big one!
Goal 3: Let students help in the classroom. I can admit that I have a hard time letting kids to things in the classroom because I may be slightly a perfectionist. Slowly over the past two years, I had a group of students that knew this about me that helped me out and did a fantastic job. Now that those beloved 8th graders will be replaced by unsuspecting 7th graders, this makes me panic! So, I promise to myself to create 'Classroom Jobs' so that students can take ownership of the classroom. I also promise to not redo a job at the end of the day because students won't benefit from that!
Goal 4: Learn to really do the Rubik's cube. I can do it about halfway but I would really like to dazzle the new kids by completing it without aides. In addition to the 'cool' factor associated with this(yep, kids still think it's cool!), it sparks interest in transformations which relates back to incorporating real like mathematics into the classroom! Double Bonus.
I will update my goals as I continue on into the summer. Do you have any goals for next year? I would love to hear about them. Thanks for reading!
