Week 2 Teaching Blog

Blog post: Week 2.

                This week was the first full week of school for our students, as well as parents’ night last night. Needless to say, I am pretty exhausted. This week I focused on activities that could “warm up” students to my expectations. For both my junior and senior classes, I began the week with an APA workshop. In class, students were to find a primary source on JSTOR, the school’s subscription-based primary source database, and write a 150 word summary about it in proper APA format. The assignment also had to include a title page, a running head, and a reference page. To simplify the assignment for the sake of time and for future use, I created a template for APA formatting on Word and assigned that they create a JSTOR account for homework before the workshop. Upon arrival to the class, I had the assignment on the overhead as well as the LMS. Students were able to quickly go to their assignments and begin after a brief explanation. The class went very smoothly and the students were thrilled that JSTOR has a “cite paper” feature where they can copy and paste the correct citation. It was a really successful class because the students went from looking at APA as a cumbersome task to something that is very manageable. During the assignment, I was able to sit down with students that were struggling with either their computers or the work and give them individual attention as needed. This also allowed me to take some notes at the end of the period on who would need a bit of support in some of the larger assignments that the class will do later this year.

Today we have also finished the first complete “cycle” of our schedule. This year is the first year that we are trying a two-week cycle for classes. We have also added an extra block to the schedule. This allows students that would like to take extra classes to have a free period throughout the week. The schedule thus far has been well received. However, there is one major drawback.  Some classes do not meet for up to 5 days, depending on the block and the week. For example, I might see a class on a Wednesday for week A, and then the next time I would see them in week B is Monday. To prevent students from forgetting everything they have learned from the last class, I have taken a page from my online classes at Stevenson. Students will have a small reading assignment and then either have an online quiz or a ~250 word response to a question. Amazingly, all 31 of my students turned in the assignment after the 5-day gap. I was thrilled. To assist students that may have trouble on these styles of assignments, I have allowed the two learning specialists to enroll in my LMS page so that they can see the assignments, and I have posted my free periods on the door of my room so that students can come by for extra help. The learning specialists and I have already helped a number of students.