2020 Goals Review

At the beginning of 2020 I came up with a list of goals that I’d like to try and get done.  Little did I know how this year would get turned on its head just a few months later.  With that being said, let’s take a look at how I did this last year.

Professional Goals:

  • Finish my Master’s Degree with a 4.0 – This happened!  I thought for sure I would have one class that I didn’t make an ‘A’ in, but I was able to pull it off.  The last semester was a close call.  If you’re interested in Instructional Technology, I highly recommend the Texas A&M program…but I’m biased.
  • Develop a 1-year and 5-year plan for my career – I started work on this, but my plans had a curveball thrown at them when I changed jobs and some of the items on my plan were taken care of.  A post on this is in the works if you’re interested in my job change.
  • Find 1 mentor to continue my development – This particular goal was when I thought I was predicting a career change outside of K-12 education.  While this may happen at some point, this goal has changed significantly since the beginning of the school year.

Personal Goals:

  • Read 1 book per month (not degree related) – I started off strong on this one.  I believe I made it until August, but have since fallen off the wagon.
  • Cut my screen time – This goal was difficult for me during the quarantine.  I feel like I managed as best I could, but I don’t know if the numbers would bear out a decrease in screen time.
  • Develop one tradition with each of my children – This was a fun experience.  I think we’ve gotten to a good spot of traditions with my children.  My son and I have Cub Scouts to bond over (I am an Eagle Scout) and my daughter and I have bonded over a love for cooking.  

Overall, I could have done better with my goals, but it was fun trying new things and learning as this crazy year went on.

The Value of Data

As a history teacher, sometimes I get caught up in the big picture rather than the details.  I like the meta-concept more than I do the details.  This is especially true when I look at grades or trends in my classroom.  Sometimes I’ll look at an assessment and rather than drill down into the data I’ll opt to say things like “The students must not have understood this as well as last unit.”  This week I got the opportunity to have the first US History data day and it was very useful for me as we come down the home stretch of the school year.

We began the day looking at the overall data for our school on our cumulative assessment.  This was helpful to me because it helped us identify areas in the curriculum that the US History teachers do well and where I can improve and learn from my teammates.  It is true that we’ve done this on our own at times, but to see everything in black and white as well as having the time to talk through the curriculum together was oddly therapeutic.

After staying at the macro level, we began to dig into our sub-pops to see what their weaknesses are as we finish up our curriculum.  It was interesting to break down all the ways we could spiral information from the beginning of the year into the end of the year.  Since this is only my second year teaching this content, I’m still learning where there is overlap between the units.

We finished the day looking at specific areas to review before our state tests later this semester.  Last year we thought we had a good plan, but after looking at all of our data we were able to pinpoint specific areas of weakness as well as match up common weaknesses.  We also divided up the work between all the history teachers to ensure we were all pulling our weight and getting experience developing the materials we’ll need.

While it wasn’t anything earth shattering, it was great to get another set of eyes at our students and new insight coming to the party.  It was a great experience and it helps remind me that we have a good support network for our school and our department.

Leadership and Beyond

This week was a typical last week of school.  Two days of finals, a half day to end it all with the kids, and a day of checking out of school.  I am not the biggest fan of the last week of school, for the most part.  I hate killing time with kids because we have to be there because the kids get bored with that so quickly.  I feel like I always have run out of energy and get short with my students more quickly during the last week.  By the time the kids leave on the last day my mind is clouded by my frustrations of the last week of school and not the wonderful memories of the past school year.  The kids are interesting though because even the ones that have hated school all year long reflect on the “good times” and don’t want to leave.  That’s one thing my school does really well, we create an atmosphere of family that the kids can recognize.  They are excited to leave for the next step of their educational journey, but they always look back with fond memories of their junior high days.  I’m so grateful to work at the school I do with the people I do.

Yesterday we met as a leadership team to discuss changes for the upcoming school year.  It is basically all the grade level leaders, department heads, administrators, and a few selected teachers meeting for a day to review policies and set new ones for the upcoming school year.  Usually it’s in the middle of the summer, but this year we decided to have it really close to the end of the school year.  This year we decided to change our schedule just a bit and talked a lot about welcoming new teachers onto our campus.  I think this a bigger problem in teaching than most veteran teachers actually realize.  I lucked out being closely linked with a couple of other coaches and had them looking out for me my first couple of years, but rookie teachers don’t always have people looking out for them.  We decided to take it upon ourselves to train up the new teachers to our campus as well as reminded each other of some of the difficulties of transitioning to a new campus so we can all be aware of where the rookies may need some more support.  Hopefully we’ll do a better job of welcoming these new people to our team.

I’m pretty sure we’ll be welcoming a new member to the history department this year, so I really want to make sure they feel supported and integrated well into our department.  Maybe it’s just my perception, but I feel like I have a very fragmented department overall.  This year I really want to try and get everyone on the same page and move forward as a department.  We have some challenging personalities in the history department so it won’t be easy, but I would really like to see movement toward a cohesive group.  We’ll see how this goes in the upcoming school year.

Ending Well

The end of the year is always a difficult combination of looking forward to next school year, trying to end this school year well, and being exhausted from the school year.  This year I have tried so hard to use the end of the year to try things out to see how they will go in future years.  

A few of the teachers in my school (myself included) are going to be going to standards based grading next school year.  Monday of this week we spent some time touring another school that has an iPad in every student’s hands and talked with the teachers and staff about how they incorporate technology into their school day at all times.  It was the second time I had visited this school and I was so impressed by the way their students acted with technology as well as the culture of the school.  After meeting with the principal of the school it became evident that they have some unique advantages such as working at approximately 60% capacity, but none the less it was an eye opening experience.  When we met after lunch our group began to talk about standards based grading and how we could best implement it in our classes next year.  We met with various technology related staff as well as an assistant superintendent, so we felt a lot of pressure as well as excitement.  In the end, we all left with some action items and we able to begin the process of moving forward.  We were also let know that we will be using Blackboard for the online content in our classroom next year.  The last time I used Blackboard was in college and it was not a well thought out piece of software, but I’m going to try and keep an open mind as we go through training next week on it.

In the second half of the week I really tried to incorporate some of the ideas in Mark Barnes’ book Role Reversal.  I tried to use mini lessons and allow the kids to have choice and opinions.  I’m realizing that one of my weaknesses is letting my level of exhaustion determine the amount of time and feedback I give my kids during each class period.  In the future I need to know that this is a weakness of mine and push through.  My kids are also not used to this method of teaching, so there was some confusion and misunderstanding of how class was going to operate.  I think by setting expectations from the beginning of the school year next year I’ll better be able to mold my classroom into a place where kids are motivated to learn on their own and I can give them constant feedback about how their learning is going.  I’m really looking forward to planning this summer on my own and coming back together with my colleagues and collaborating on transforming our classrooms.

I’m also working on increasing my work related reading at the end of the school year.  Right now I’m working on Daniel Pink’s book Drive.  I would say that at the halfway point of this book I can see exactly how Mark Barnes used this text to drive his classroom.  I’ve really enjoyed seeing motivation through the eyes of science. I’m fascinated by different perspectives on everyday events (which is why I love the show Mythbusters) and this book has opened my eyes.  I’m looking forward to finishing this book and then moving on to a few other books this summer.

A Time for Reflection

As we wind down the 2012-2013 school year, I’m trying not to get bogged down by all the minutia of the end of a school year.  I’m trying to get things ordered in my classroom so that the beginning of next year isn’t so bad.  People are beginning to pull me to various training and meetings that are great, but tend to distract me from what is going on in my classroom.  On top of all that I just came back from my paternity leave and that has also thrown me for a loop.  All that being said, I really would like to use a couple of days at the end of the year to reflect on the year that was and what we have learned as a class.

It’s been a tradition of mine in the classroom to get feedback from the kids about what they liked and disliked about my classroom.  I try my best to both formally and informally collect data about things that have been successful as well as things that I for sure need to work on for next year.  I’ve done this in a number of ways in the past from simple conversations, to videos about “what to expect in Mr. Horner’s class,” and even Google forms that the kids can individually fill out for me.  This year I know for sure that I want to collect this data and I’m not sure which method I’m going to use.  I may incorporate Edmodo so that the kids can feel confident that I won’t be sharing any of their responses with their classmates (not like I ever do).

It’s also important for the kids to reflect on their year in social studies.  I want them to reflect on the things that they’ve learned and the concepts that they will carry with them forever.  I also want them to reflect on the way they best have learned material this year because in our district we ask the kids to self-diagnose themselves and the ways they best learn.  Some kids do really well with technology in their hands where others thrive with less technology.  I don’t want them to definitively paint themselves in a corner, but I would like them to start the process of understanding how they best learn.

Hopefully using all the data above I can help refine my content and my craft to be better next year than I was this year.  I also hope my kids better understand themselves and the world in which they live and are better prepared to interact with their world.  I guess that’s every teachers goal…right?