This was a short week. Monday was a holiday (for teachers, bankers, and federal folks anyway!) and Tuesday was a Professional Development (PD) day for teachers. So, I only had kids for 3 days.
Wednesday was a disaster. The kids had been off for 4 days and were wound up. I never even got to my 4th period lesson, and I am embarrassed to admit that my frustrations were evident to the kids. A lose-lose situation. That flowed right into 5th period math where I spent 40 of my 50 minutes trying to get the kids to sit and pay attention. Yes, really. A total disaster. Thursday was a pretty good day. I started CSAP work with my science kids (more below) and tried to stay focused on the lessons with math.
CSAPs start next week (Tues, Wed, Thursday of this week and next), so I focused on prep/review for the test. I have mentioned that our school is behind - so truly prepping the students at this point is just doing our best to expose them to material to give them a fighting chance. I used the internet to find sample questions (generally releases from prior CSAPs and utilizing resources from other states) to go through with my class. I intend to do my best to "fill in the blanks" on the science material. So far, I've identified electricity and review of the structure of an atom as big needs. The atom will be relatively simple to review from the 35k foot level. Electricity - not so easy. I plan to make them a review packet with information, vocabulary, and images of circuits this weekend to give them on Monday - I can't do much more than that in the few days we have left. I'll have my full classes on Monday and Friday and the science and math tests are in week 2. For math, the prep has focused on giving them the formulas they need for the test and hoping it sinks in. Totally not effective teaching, I know, but coming in 2.5 weeks before testing doesn't leave many options.
Let me back up a bit to tell you what I know and don't know as far as my kids levels and my limited resources. Part of the issue here is that I didn't know what to ask for and who to ask (not that the data doesn't exist). So, on Monday and Tuesday of next week I will request data on my kids, the assessments used so far this year, and speak to the other science teacher about what was covered in grades 6/7. The last piece is important as we have 2 textbooks for science that are used for all three grades (each book has different content). Without knowing what they did in prior years, I don't know if I am repeating material (literally repeating!). Oh, and we don't have the teacher's editions for either text.
Math is more straight forward as far as the level of the kids - but we are implementing a Singapore Math curriculum that has not been used thus far. Why change? Well, the prior curriculum given by the staff that has been replaced, apparently didn't have text book. At least with Singapore, we have workbooks, textbooks, and most importantly for me, teacher's guides. So, once I figure out where to start, at least I have something to guide me in the content. For the last week in my "higher" math class, I sat in on the earlier period math class of another teacher and presented her same lesson. Not the way I want to teach, but it took the stress off. That teacher hasn't started the Singapore curriculum yet though, so I'll shift off this "strategy" in the coming weeks.
But, content is just a small part of the issue. All of my wonderful teacher friends and mentors have preached structure structure structure. Which is great, if I knew what that meant in a classrooom (I thought I did....!). I had a 3 hour meeting this morning with one of my administrators to give me a crash course on teaching. She helped layout my class structure from entrance through to exiting. She is also going to co-teach with me a bit to help me implement the structure. I am so grateful that she has offered to help me. She stressed to me today that content is such a small part of what I need to tackle first - these kids (who have been totally failed by their school in the past) need structure first and foremost. I've heard this from other teacher friends, and I think it is starting to sink in....
I hope you are now understanding why I have been struggling so much. I don't know where they have been or where I need to go with them. And the content doesn't matter as much as the structure. So, I'll start there after CSAP is over...
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