te@chthought Reflective Challenge: Day 2--Tech Integration (not)

Tech is something that has always had a place in my classroom. I had my first class website in 2000--and frequently used online resources to supplement instruction.  As more and more of my colleagues are moving into the 21st century, though, I am almost taking a step back.  This year I want to go more "low-tech" and reignite my love affair with my overhead projector.  It sure does look different these days--and I don't have to use special wipe off pens any longer--but the end result will be the same. 

At the end of last year my colleagues and I had the opportunity to take a workshop with Kelly Gallagher. While he shared so many wonderful ideas to make my classroom a more rich, authentic learning environment, the one piece that I really latched on to is the idea of modeling the writing process with my students.  I can remember my writing class in 2000, pulling up a chair beside many of my students and drafting right along with them, putting up transparencies of my works in progress to share the ups and downs of the writing process.  For some reason, and I'm certain not a good one, I left that method of teaching behind.  This year, however, I am going to strive to produce as much as my students--make an effort to commiserate (and actually not have to fake my own grief with assignments).  Let's see how that works out.

te@chthought Reflective Teaching Blog Challenge Day 1

Today I begin the challenge of reflectively blogging for the next 30 days.  This is just the sort of thing I need to jump-start my year and reignite my blog.

The prompt for today is to outline some of my goals for this school year.  This challenge was particularly interesting since one of my big goals is becoming a more reflective practitioner.  Too often I make changes in my teaching without taking stock of what is already working.  I have a tendency to push forward without giving much mind to what has happened before.  This year I would like to slow down, make sure the assignments I'm giving are meeting the objectives I have set, and in doing so, working smarter, not harder.

The other goal I have for this year is to increase my parent/school communication. I have always been very good at keeping an open door for parents, but I've never been particularly good at making first contact and continuing that contact throughout the year. The students in my urban building have family members who made a conscious choice to send his or her child to us. One of the big selling points is parent communication. Thus, I need to do better on my end of things.  With that in mind, over the next two days I'm going to call all of my students' families and make that first, crucial step.  Open House is coming up--maybe if they get early enough notice they will be able to make it.

So, there it is. My first blog of the new school year. I'm optimistic that this one will be one of the best yet.