Thursday, December 07, 2017

Assessing Efforts: What's Working and What More Can I Do

As I assess the classroom efforts this year to date, the following efforts are working:

  • before school homework help
  • lots of small group and one-to-one time with students who need/desire it with multiple teachers and teaching assistants
  • study packets to support student/family math study/learning
  • online homework that provides quick response
  • logical step-by-step approach to the standards
  • use of Google forms for tests/practice tests since those forms help students to practice for online standardized tests and afford educators a deeper way to assess and look at data to inform instruction
  • use of TenMarks, Symphony Math, That Quiz, and Illuminations to support student learning and teaching
  • regular emails and newsletters to family members related to student performance, needs, and efforts. This supports home-school teamwork in positive ways
  • regular analysis of formal and informal data to inform instruction
  • daily instruction related to learning-to-learn attitudes and efforts to empower learners and put them in the driver's seat of their own education
Where I would like to grow the program more includes the following:
  • use of deeper and more meaningful math project/problem work
  • greater time/ability to support students who regularly stay after school for homework club
How will I grow these efforts?

In the new year, I'll commit as many Thursdays as I can to support students who stay after school. I volunteered to help out on Tuesdays too, but my proposal didn't fit the criteria of the Tuesday extra-help program, so my offer was denied. 

I'll also look for times to make one-to-one time during the school day, before school and after school for students for whom I need to understand more with regard to their math learning. Those one-to-one sessions are powerful when it comes to good teaching. Further, I'll continue to think about the suggestions I received last week for deepening the math program with more meaningful problems and projects. This is going to be difficult since the fifth grade program is such a skill building program with little time for deep projects and problem work. I'm all ears however when it comes to ideas for building this in, and I'll continue to look for ways to do this. 

All in all we're off to a good start, and this post will help to direct future efforts.