3 Things to Change

The first half of my winter break was not productive when it came to schoolwork, but as bad as I feel about it, I think it is probably for the best. Sometimes a good detox is all you need to feel better. And I definitely feel better. I've had some time to reflect on how this school year is going so far, and I've thought about the things I want to improve upon for the next five months. I lost sight of some priorities over the last few months, and I want to make sure I continue to do what is best for my students-- I want to re-ignite my spark for the rest of the year! There are three things that I am going to consciously change as soon as possible.

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1. I want my students to write more. It's so important that they feel comfortable writing paragraphs, essays and more, since their academic and lifelong careers will probably require some form of written expression. Though my students are pros at writing tweets and passionate facebook posts, they aren't as comfortable with academic writing at school. The first thing I'm going to have students do when we get back on Tuesday is WRITE! They're going to write about their winter break-- a topic that they surely will have something to say about.

2. I want to create more. Some of the assignments and worksheets I created over the last few years are great, and only need small changes each year, but there are others that need to be scrapped, with new activities created in their places. I want to commit myself to creating more cool assignments that will increase student engagement in my class. I've started by creating a "Renaissance Man" lesson for the first week back. I think it will be good!

3. I want my students to be appropriate when asking to use the restroom. I know this sounds super trivial, but it really bugs me when my students ask to go to the bathroom during the middle of a lesson. I am going to institute some major changes in two weeks at semester break, but I plan to more clearly communicate my expectations about bathroom breaks to my students on Tuesday. Hopefully setting clear expectations, and reminding students of them, will decrease the inappropriate bathroom requests.