What is school anyway?

This is embarrassing but I completely forgot to put my blog on the tracker last week. I had it typed up on my computer and I sick and just forgot to upload it. 

This was the best week I have had so far, mainly because it was so short. I hate to say that since you know, I'm supposed to be a teacher but sometimes you just need a break. We started an activity that I am pleased to say went extremely well. Each class excelled and did phenomenally. It was probably because this time I divided them up into Lexile groups. This made the activity so much easier for the students and I think most of them got something out of it. So my victory this short week was my students actually learning and making deeper connections. The group work they did also helped me to connect with each of them better by sitting down with them in their groups and assisting and answering questions they may have. I think that they have to know that I am human too. That sounds silly but what I mean is that they have to know that I do not expect them to be perfect. I expect them to have questions and I want them to ask them so I don't have to pull it out of them. I want them to know that they can tell me if they don't understand. For next week, if we have school, I will make sure that I express to them that I only want them to try their best and ask when they need help. My long term goal is to help students learn on a deeper level and hopefully by breaking the ice and letting them know that I am here to help them and not just grade them they will be able to ask questions and explore and discover new things for themselves. Over the break that we had, I should have spent all of my time finishing lesson plans for the rest of the semester, but I didn't and I'm actually glad. Being able to sit down with the students in their groups and show them and help them I came to the realization that my time needs to be more wisely spent on planning lessons that are going to help students learn and make them want to ask questions. So for the weeks ahead, I will be thinking of ways to help the students want to ask questions and want to speak up in class and answer questions because they have a thirst for knowledge and an interest in what is being taught so much so that they want to learn more outside of class. The logical step for next week is to make sure that my lessons that I have planned create an environment that is inviting and that my questioning makes students want to learn more and ask questions, and research. I want to take them a step farther. I actually did not analyze any data this week other than looking at some writing assignments about Voltaire. They were telling about how the student interacts with other people but not much about their school performance. It did however, give me insight to some of their personalities. 

Since it was a short week, there was not a huge pool to choose from standard wise but 1a was one that I tried to push this week. I tried to be the leader of my classroom. Everything that went on I took full responsibility for. There were times where students did not understand and I had to explain myself better and in a different way because they did not understand. I also explained to them that sometimes we need to hear things multiple times or in a different way for it to actually stick.