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Been workin' hard today giving my class website a new look. It's not done yet (will post when it is) but I like how it's looking. Nothing fancy, just, I dunno, cleaner than the other site which was getting boring to me. I'm hoping to get inspiration to finish updates on all the other sites that never got updates this summer. At least the Wheelock website is updated and the Lindsey Davis website.
I do too damn much. Repeat after me: NO. NO. NO NO NO.
I have learned that I am to teach a character education course. No known curriculum yet. Don't know whether it's a semester elective or a year long elective. Haven't a clue how to plan for it, but I am looking forward to it oddly enough.
The key to a class website is to make it useful, by the way. It needs to promote Latin as well as having things that people might need. I also keep some quia.com pages for Latin. The kids love those, and I do as well. Very useful.
At this point, I'm not sure which textbook I want to teach from; the old ones that I have material for or the new ones that the state legislature won't let us have. I suppose I won't have that many revisions to make to my materials...
And I can't forget about the new micrologue/drill/reading thingy I want to try this year that I was playing with at the first of the summer. But that will have to be for another entry. And I'm not sure I'll even be able to do it right anyway.
Some days I think I could be a brilliant, absolutely brilliant teacher if I were single. If I had all the time in the world to devote to all the great ideas. But I'm glad I'm not. I'm glad I have to put my stuff aside when I come home and help my children with homework, run them to their sports and speech therapy, play cards with them and read to them at night. Even if you love what you do, you MUST take a break from it.
In fact, there's a lesson here that I want to drive home. Make assignments that are easy to grade. Or, rather, avoid assignments and projects that are difficult to grade, unless necessary. Or unless you are single. It's like what I was saying the other day about warm-up spirals. You have to take a grade or there's no accountability and the lazy kids will just blow it off. But if you were to dutifully collect them every Friday and stay 3 hours after school grading them, well who got punished? You did. That's a lot of time spent grading something that isn't high up on the importance level. It's not a test or a quiz. Just a warm-up. So when do I check warm-up spirals? WHILE students are taking tests. I can usually get through all of them in half a class. Certainly I'm done by the time the kids are finished with the tests.
And speaking of test taking, remember to help students monitor their own time taking tests. Keep how many minutes are left on the board, remind them that they should skip questions giving them problems and move on to other portions of the test. Some students have no sense for how to manage time or take tests. Some students will stare for 10 minutes at one hard question and do nothing else but convince themselves that they are too stupid to finish the test. And sometimes it's just that one question or that one section. Teach them to move on, remind them of the time, write it on the board, help them learn how to succeed at test taking. Especially if you teach middle school. This will be the first time they are taking hard tests for many students.
Anyway. I'm going back to work on my website. Tomorrow's a lost day because my husband was bitten by a copperhead and I have to go to the camp where he and my son are in order to drive his car back. He'll be ok, I think. He's just in a lot of pain.
Just another twist in these last couple of weeks before school.
I do too damn much. Repeat after me: NO. NO. NO NO NO.
I have learned that I am to teach a character education course. No known curriculum yet. Don't know whether it's a semester elective or a year long elective. Haven't a clue how to plan for it, but I am looking forward to it oddly enough.
The key to a class website is to make it useful, by the way. It needs to promote Latin as well as having things that people might need. I also keep some quia.com pages for Latin. The kids love those, and I do as well. Very useful.
At this point, I'm not sure which textbook I want to teach from; the old ones that I have material for or the new ones that the state legislature won't let us have. I suppose I won't have that many revisions to make to my materials...
And I can't forget about the new micrologue/drill/reading thingy I want to try this year that I was playing with at the first of the summer. But that will have to be for another entry. And I'm not sure I'll even be able to do it right anyway.
Some days I think I could be a brilliant, absolutely brilliant teacher if I were single. If I had all the time in the world to devote to all the great ideas. But I'm glad I'm not. I'm glad I have to put my stuff aside when I come home and help my children with homework, run them to their sports and speech therapy, play cards with them and read to them at night. Even if you love what you do, you MUST take a break from it.
In fact, there's a lesson here that I want to drive home. Make assignments that are easy to grade. Or, rather, avoid assignments and projects that are difficult to grade, unless necessary. Or unless you are single. It's like what I was saying the other day about warm-up spirals. You have to take a grade or there's no accountability and the lazy kids will just blow it off. But if you were to dutifully collect them every Friday and stay 3 hours after school grading them, well who got punished? You did. That's a lot of time spent grading something that isn't high up on the importance level. It's not a test or a quiz. Just a warm-up. So when do I check warm-up spirals? WHILE students are taking tests. I can usually get through all of them in half a class. Certainly I'm done by the time the kids are finished with the tests.
And speaking of test taking, remember to help students monitor their own time taking tests. Keep how many minutes are left on the board, remind them that they should skip questions giving them problems and move on to other portions of the test. Some students have no sense for how to manage time or take tests. Some students will stare for 10 minutes at one hard question and do nothing else but convince themselves that they are too stupid to finish the test. And sometimes it's just that one question or that one section. Teach them to move on, remind them of the time, write it on the board, help them learn how to succeed at test taking. Especially if you teach middle school. This will be the first time they are taking hard tests for many students.
Anyway. I'm going back to work on my website. Tomorrow's a lost day because my husband was bitten by a copperhead and I have to go to the camp where he and my son are in order to drive his car back. He'll be ok, I think. He's just in a lot of pain.
Just another twist in these last couple of weeks before school.
"Character Education"?
Date: 2005-07-31 04:01 pm (UTC)--Bane
Re: "Character Education"?
Date: 2005-07-31 08:16 pm (UTC)2005-2006
August/September=Respect
October/November=Courage
December/January=Caring
February/March=Honesty
April/May=Perseverance
2006-2007
August/September= Responsibility
October/November= Integrity
December/January= Fairness
February/March= Self-Discipline
April/May= Trustworthiness
Don't know about materials or anything, but, hey, if I'm allowed to mine classics sources, I've got plenty of ethics/good citizenship materials. I know Galinsky has stuff on qualities becoming to a Roman in his Augustan Culture, which I've pulled off the shelf and is sitting at my feet. But I have to finish Harry Potter first before I read what's in Augustan Culture. ha!