My last post discussed my 2010-2011 classroom goals - go paperless, accelerate student achievement, and encourage students to become published writers. I read an interesting article about class size from the latest issue of NCTE Inbox, and I'd like to talk about this as it relates to accelerating student achievement.
So, how many is too many? According to the NCTE Class Size Guideline for secondary classrooms a maximum of 20 students per class and no more than 80 throughout the day. I realize districts are up against a wall when it comes to class size, finances, and staffing, but as a teacher I ask the question, can I truly accelerate student achievement with a class of 36? According to NCTE, no I cannot. However, they address the fact that a reduced class size isn't a complete fix to boost student achievement, effective ongoing professional development is necessary, too. I encourage anyone who reads this blog to take a look at the above link from NCTE. The state of Florida class size rule is pushing students towards on-line courses, in order to fulfill high school graduation requirements. Is that really the route we want to go? I understand this is not a problem unique to me, or my classroom, but the guidelines provided from the National Council of Teachers of English are a great starting point to begin to address this serious, but sometimes overlooked issue.
In closing, I could certainly handle those above recommedations quite nicely, and while I'm blogging, could I get a block of time (80-90 minutes) to teach English/Language Arts? I just thought I'd ask.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Technology and Room 210, a Love-Hate Relationship
So, week two of the school year is under my belt and I must say it has been a great start. I've enjoyed getting to know my students and beginning our journey to become literary and written scholars. This school year I've set several goals for myself and my classroom:
1. Go paperless (as much as possible)
2. Accelerate student achievement (borrowed from district goals)
3. Provide opportunities and encourage my students to become published writers
In my next three posts, I will be discussing how each of these goals is going so far. Goal #1 is to go paperless in my classroom. So far, this is not going as smoothly as I had hoped. My plan for the first few days of school was to set-up all of the accounts for the online resources we would be using. In order to do that my students needed an email address. I had this great idea to have students set-up a professional (or student) email account through Gmail to help with this. Not only would this allow us to create the rest of our accounts, but it would also open the door to begin discussing digital responsibility and citizenship. This discussion began with choosing appropriate user names for accounts that are tied to our places of work (in the case of my students - school). However, for a couple of days Gmail didn't cooperate with us, and only one class was able to successfully create their email accounts. Another day our network was down which caused me to have to resort to "Plan B". I assigned the students homework to create the account at home and I am happy to report that many did that and were successful. I think come Tuesday, we will be ready to go with the other resources.
Unfortunately, these technology issues caused me to have to make paper copies, which I am totally trying to avoid. However, I am confident that once these accounts are set-up we will be able to move on to a "green" classroom, which excites all of us.
Technology is a wonderful thing, but it is also your worst enemy when it doesn't cooperate. However, part of being a teacher is maintaining that sense of flexibility when things do not go as planned.
1. Go paperless (as much as possible)
2. Accelerate student achievement (borrowed from district goals)
3. Provide opportunities and encourage my students to become published writers
In my next three posts, I will be discussing how each of these goals is going so far. Goal #1 is to go paperless in my classroom. So far, this is not going as smoothly as I had hoped. My plan for the first few days of school was to set-up all of the accounts for the online resources we would be using. In order to do that my students needed an email address. I had this great idea to have students set-up a professional (or student) email account through Gmail to help with this. Not only would this allow us to create the rest of our accounts, but it would also open the door to begin discussing digital responsibility and citizenship. This discussion began with choosing appropriate user names for accounts that are tied to our places of work (in the case of my students - school). However, for a couple of days Gmail didn't cooperate with us, and only one class was able to successfully create their email accounts. Another day our network was down which caused me to have to resort to "Plan B". I assigned the students homework to create the account at home and I am happy to report that many did that and were successful. I think come Tuesday, we will be ready to go with the other resources.
Unfortunately, these technology issues caused me to have to make paper copies, which I am totally trying to avoid. However, I am confident that once these accounts are set-up we will be able to move on to a "green" classroom, which excites all of us.
Technology is a wonderful thing, but it is also your worst enemy when it doesn't cooperate. However, part of being a teacher is maintaining that sense of flexibility when things do not go as planned.
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