Day 1: When Things Start to Change

It is the first student attendance day after winter break and I am tired!  Yesterday we had institute day which was nice but I still went to bed at 8pm!  HOLY COW!

As I start to reflect the first 4 months of school and look to the next 4 months there are somethings that I am going to do differently.

1. Incorporate more MARS tasks into the routine.  If you are not familiar with MARS tasks, they are wonderful activities that access student's thinking and push them to the next step.  A lot like what PARCC is about to do to all these kids.
2. Go back to backwards design.  My school adopted CMP3 this year and it has been a rough transition for others and myself. I need to take back the feeling that I am accomplishing things in the classroom and really push these kids to be their best.
3.  Start taking advantage of the information that entrance and exit slips give.  My curriculum partner and I were talking at institute yesterday and decided to cut the number of problems on the weekly quiz and gain this information other ways.

Do you have anything that you decided needed to change when you stepped away for 2 weeks?  I would love to hear about it.