This week was a little bit more difficult for me to put into words what I was thinking about observations into an infographic. I had more fun though creating it from a blank slate, it was supposed to have a background and I just realized that doesn’t show on my blog, whereas last week I used a template. I think it’s really good that we can all talk about how we are observing and get good ideas from others to improve or change what we are doing. I think we are all contributing to each other’s learning in this way, because we seem to all feel comfortable asking others how they are doing things if we want/need too.. I like how the infographics give us the information in a summarized form so that we get the important concepts, it makes what the other person is trying to get across a lot clearer, at least for me.
This last week we only had one day where I could actually do observations because we had parent teacher conferences and a test. I was good to have that one day to see what worked and what didn’t and to change around my template for the coming up weeks. I was able to see that it would be easier if I put certain categories next to each other on my template, rather than five spaces away from each other because I’m observing these two at the same time, off and on task behavior. It was nice having conferences this week, even if I didn’t get to observe all week, because I got to talk to all the parents about what we are going to be doing so they understand. They all seem very positive about it as do all the boys which is great. For me, it was better to get to talk to parents, then send out an email to them trying to explain what we were doing. I’m looking forward to the next couple weeks and how my 7th grade boys do with this type of classroom model. If it works well, we are going to continue it, and I will probably try and do it with my Algebra 1 class and my 6th grade math class. I really like being available to help my kids more and to just have a few minutes to talk to them about whatever develops.
This last week we only had one day where I could actually do observations because we had parent teacher conferences and a test. I was good to have that one day to see what worked and what didn’t and to change around my template for the coming up weeks. I was able to see that it would be easier if I put certain categories next to each other on my template, rather than five spaces away from each other because I’m observing these two at the same time, off and on task behavior. It was nice having conferences this week, even if I didn’t get to observe all week, because I got to talk to all the parents about what we are going to be doing so they understand. They all seem very positive about it as do all the boys which is great. For me, it was better to get to talk to parents, then send out an email to them trying to explain what we were doing. I’m looking forward to the next couple weeks and how my 7th grade boys do with this type of classroom model. If it works well, we are going to continue it, and I will probably try and do it with my Algebra 1 class and my 6th grade math class. I really like being available to help my kids more and to just have a few minutes to talk to them about whatever develops.