End of Term #1

Um...can anyone believe that Term 1 ended? That means that 1/4 of the school year is complete. Say what?! That can't even be true.
When I look back at the beginning of the school year I think - was that really me? What was I even doing? I feel like I've learned so much in the past couple of months. I'm always amazed at the learning curve of a new teacher. I'm pretty sure the learning curve is huge every single year you teach, but it's especially high the first three years.

Anyway, most of my kids passed all of their classes! There were some students who had such low grades that there wasn't a whole lot that I could do. Interestingly enough, these students were also absent a lot of the time. Hmm...I wonder if there is a connection!

Now that it's the beginning of the term though, I have some grand plans to be more on top of things with my students.
Here are some of my goals:

--Have students study for vocab tests a little bit every day. Students rarely passed the vocabulary tests in their English classes, so I want them to spend at least ten minutes of my class studying and practicing the spelling of the words.
--Now that I'm more familiar with the teachers in the school and their personalities, I can be wary of the teachers that are...not fans of the special ed students in their classes. Hopefully I can monitor those students carefully and make sure I stay on top of the assignments due in those classes.
--I'm also going to be more consistent with my expectations and routines. I've changed my classroom management a little bit, so hopefully I can stick to it and really hammer those procedures.
--I also want to use the time in my class to have students work on their IEP goals. I figure that if I have a little extra time, then my students should be working on their IEP goals! Along those same lines, I want to more carefully monitor which students struggle in math, reading, whatever, and provide extra supports in those areas.


Those are just a few of the things that I want to change, but hopefully this term will be an improvement from last term!

-Ms. Damron-