Week 17 - A New Year?

Students and teacher returned from winter break rested and excited to be back. Yes, I said the teacher was excited to be back. I started the week out by shaking things up. Up until now, I had not assigned seats. One of my goals, give students choice, allowed me to not have to spend time creating seating charts up to this point. As students settled in, they moved around some, sitting with different people. It was working great, the students were getting to work with a variety of people, just what I had hoped. But as second quarter began, they settled in and the mixing stopped. I let it go because it was their decision. But over break, I decided I needed to shake things up and try something new. My hope was that the relationship I had established between teacher and students would result in very little complaining. Of the 150 students, one complained. Kids were not jumping for joy, but understood my explanation of wanting them to collaborate with new people. It was a good week. I began by wrapping up/reviewing the Civil War. To begin the unit on Reconstruction and get the new groups working together, I had them read and answer questions off and on throughout the week. At first, they didn't work well with their new partners, but by the end of the week they had settled in.
I continued to promote that sense of community each day by starting out with my This day in History trivia. This has been a great way to begin class. Kids are engaged right away, and have a lot of fun playing along and trying to get the answers. Students continue to come to class ready to learn and their excitement for class continues to run at a high level. I have not tried any new strategies recently. I have been trying to mix up my lessons. Trivia, group work, video and discussion were apart of each class period. I have been attempting to spice up class by designing lessons that flow from one thing to the next, but have 4 or 5 different activities during the period. This takes more planning, but then students like the quick pace and freshness of the class. I have decided that during third quarter, I will use Senteo response systems in class. I have not used them yet this year, and want to bring them out to help engage students with something new. Also, I am going to try a new approach to the assessment for the reconstruction unit. I am going to give the students the choice to come up with their own assessment. Whatever they want, but it must demonstrate their knowledge of the material. I have never done this, but am curious what they will want to do. Give students voice and choice, and this surely will accomplish that. Until next time, Happy Teaching!!