Mrs. Evans Blog

It's tough when a kid doesn't like you or your teaching style. I gave the students a self assessment yesterday so they could consider their understanding on each topic on an upcoming test. Then at the bottom I had a place for them to write down any areas of concern or difficulty. One student wrote something to the affect of... "I don't think you're teaching very well. You just go over Bell Ringers at the beginning, go over the new stuff a little bit, and then assign homework. And I don't feel like the notes are helpful at all." I immediately start to try to justify myself and place the blame back on this student. At least she was honest! I know I will always have students that don't like my teaching style. To be honest, what she said is exactly what I do. I do Bell Ringers first. Then I go over the new stuff a little bit, and assign homework. That's the routine that a high school math teacher often gets stuck in. I do have a couple of thoughts ...

So I have been wearing a fanny pack to school to teach every day since the beginning of school. I take every opportunity I get to joke about it! I even wore the fanny pack to parent night. No one asked about it, but I found myself wondering what the parents were thinking. I had two girls tell me I was one of the best dressed teachers at school! (I don't think that's a result of the fanny pack!) I also get to be a teacher sponsor for a HUGE student council event. I have a team of 12 students and we compete in field day like evens for high school students. I joked with the kids that asked me to be their sponsor that I didn't think anyone would ask me because I was wearing a fanny pack. They laughed and said, "Oh, we asked you because you wear a fanny pack!" On a more serious note, the first test of the semester is coming up, and if I'm honest, I'm really looking forward to the break. It's nice to be able to sit for a day. It's incredible how much...

That's the phrase that I've been saying over and over in my head to prepare for this school year. I continue to say it over and over to remind myself every single day. If I have high expectations, and if I don't allow anything but those expectations, and if I stick to them consistently from the beginning and don't start to make exceptions as the year goes on, then the students will excel. They will behave how I want them to (for the most part), and everyone will learn better as a result. Most of my classes are great. I'm finding that I'm able to get some data, but I don't always know what to do with it. I'm able to come up with some simple ways to get them thinking about the math and problem solving, but I struggle with what to do when most of the kids are able to think and problem solve through a scenario, but a few students all day are unable to or choose not to. How do I get them caught back up? Today we're going to do some short notes which sho...

This is what I believe is important: 1. Math 2. Thinking logically (don't be stupid because you don't feel like thinking.) 3. Considering what does/does not make sense 4. Respect 5. Caring - Have enough self respect to care about the quality of the work that you do in everything *Not everyone thinks they need math... Everyone needs to think logically, do things that make sense, be respectful, and have self worth. The math is the tool that SHOULD teach the logical thinking and sense making. This needs to be my focus when approaching teaching math every single day.

Today went really well, so I feel like I should share what we did. In the majority of my classes I did some of the basic information about expectations and policies. I started by having them do a Bell Ringer with 4 questions. I asked them about themselves and also had 3 simple Algebra problems to gauge where they're at after last year. Then I went through a power point about me and about my classroom. Lastly, we played some "Would You Rather's." They were fun and we had some good discussions about what people chose. It wasn't anything fancy, but it felt good for the first day. I sent them home with a syllabus that needs to be signed by them and a parent as well as a letter that I want them to write to me for tomorrow. In my Algebra 2 class we did something a little different. I showed them the power point with the basic information. I didn't spend as much time going over some of the points about expectations because the 10th graders in Algebra 2 have a diffe...

I haven't blogged in almost a year! I've spent some time reading my last posts from the beginning of last year, and I can really see the value of reflecting and writing things that were important, positive, negative, that I want to remember, or just that I'm thinking about. I had forgotten some of my ideas from last year, and I'm glad I put my thoughts into words so that I can be a better teacher. I'm looking forward to having doubled my experience with classroom management. My experience at the end of second semester last year was that I started to let more things slide. Classroom management wasn't an issue for me at all at the beginning of the year, but at the beginning of the year I had committed to being as consistent as possible and being more strict. As the year went on, I started to take some of those non-issues for granted, and the kids started to notice they could get away with more. I was selfish and didn't want to focus more attention back on cl...