This year serves as my eighth year as a science teacher. I did not know I wanted to be a teacher until I was 27 years old, so I entered this "job" as a second-career teacher. I first looked into it because I was tired of having to work at menial jobs. I lived as an under-employed, bored wife. I wanted challenge, excitement, or at least summers off to go find challenge and excitement. I had NO idea what I was getting myself into, but I gotta tell ya - if you don't love this profession, get out of the classroom. You do irreparable harm if you don't enjoy teaching and you're in the classroom.
This school year (2012-2013) I have set two professional goals: improve my feedback and improve my use of formative assessment. I have been told that goals are worthless if you don't have a way to measure them. How will I know if I have improved my feedback and formative assessment? I have no idea, but that's what I have.
I'm going to use this forum as I reflect and work out my thoughts. October 25-27 I spent in downtown Atlanta to attend the ASCD conference. I attended sessions on classroom instruction (Ceri Dean), grading student work (Thomas Guskey), productive group work (Douglas Fisher), and Formative Assessment (Douglas Fisher). Then, today (November 5) I was at GISA and got some great ideas for the group work and getting the groups to work more cohesively (Kelly Lyn). As I digest these and put some of these ideas into practice, I will work out thoughts here. I welcome any feedback from the great world wide web. If anyone is following, I need your help to become the best teacher I can be!
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