Stop, Continue, Start: 2014-2015 School Year Goals

It's that time of year again! Teachers begin in-service on August 25th and the first day of school will be September 3rd. It's been a great Summer, but I'm excited to see my kids and to get back into a daily routine! I'm again using the "Stop, Continue, Start" method for thinking through my school year goals. (You can read last year's goals here.) One thing I love (and hate!) about teaching is that you will never "arrive." There is always room to grow! So here we go...

Stop

• Allowing my students to give less than their best - specifically regarding their academics and behavior in class.
• Working from home. Well... at least not as much!

Continue

• Writing "main idea notes" on the white board and practice problems on the Smart board. I started doing this at the very end of last year. My purpose is that I want students to know where to look for certain types of information. There are certain things that I expect them to write in their notes word-for-word, so I want these things on the white board so that they are visible throughout the entire lesson.
• Math Games/Activities ... I do my best to keep our lessons as interesting as possible! This might include doing math on note cards posted around the room, Vocabulary Spin game, Round Robin practice, Math Toss, etc.

Start

• Unit Planning ... I am a lesson-by-lesson girl right now, but it has come back to bite me more than once. I don't expect that I'll plan every lesson from a unit before it starts, but I want to do a better job of looking at the big picture before diving in.
• Focusing each prep period on ONE thing. I'm working on assigning each prep period a task. There will always be fires to put out throughout the day, but I'm hoping that I can manage my time better by having these goals in place.

My classroom will be ready on Monday (we had renters all Summer and they've cleaned our floors), so I'm excited to put it back together and start decorating!