This post will definitely be edited from time to time. These are my notes to myself (and anyone who cares) about what I want to do differently next year:
1. Do not let students try to shoot things into the trash can. I will admit, when the students stand far away and ask me to shoot, I'm a little curious to see if they can even make it, so I give in.
2. Still debating on a good homework check system. This year I have class period bins where they drop their homework every day when they first come into class. Then I go through them for completion and give them credit if they do the work. Thinking if I should walk around class and eyeball instead. This doesn't seem to give them as much accountability and I feel like they won't want to do their homework. Thoughts?
3. Give students roles in the class: paper passer, erase my white board, emergency kit (for fire drills), paper collector etc.
4. Start a point system in the beginning of school. Reward points for everyone being on time with their warm up out, all turning in homework, good report from the guest teacher etc. Negative points for being rude to guest teacher (deduct points per student with a bad report), talking back/being disruptive to teacher etc.
5. I don't know how it is in every grade level, but I realized I have to teach my 7th and 8th graders how to do EVERYTHING. Assume they don't know a thing and teach it all: how to label the header with first AND last name/date/period, how to take notes, have the holes on the paper facing the left, copy down each problem from the math book before solving it, skip lines in between problems, circle/box the answers, only use pencil, one staple and one staple ONLY when turning in assignments.
6. I'm debating on charging money for certain school supplies: 25 cents for a pencil or a notebook. Don't know the rules about this though...
7. I need a system when it comes to assignments for absent students, posting homework on the board, and how I have it written in my grading system. I do blame the limited space we have in our school's grading program, but I need to be better at this. Every time I give a worksheet for homework, I put it in a binder in the back of the classroom with a tab that says "(insert day of the week) Homework" and trained students to look back there the next day they come back from their absence. But when I write it in my grading system, sometimes I'll abbreviate it differently than what I have written on the board. This may not make sense to some of you, but the reason it's a problem is that it makes my life harder when I give out progress reports. I have to look through the work, and interpret which worksheets kids are missing instead of having them be able to do it on their own. Which brings me to my next point "change"...
8. Should I let students make up work? I already take late work. But when I print out progress reports and students see a list of all their missing work, they want to make it all up. 1. This takes up more of my time to find the work for them and potentially need to make more copies and 2. more time to grade. BUT if I don't let them make up work, there will be even MORE students failing my class (compared to the MANY that are already failing...)
...TO BE CONTINUED...
