Changes Are Afoot

After teaching for almost 3 months and being out the classroom for various teaching trainings and Professional Development seminars for at least 10 of those days, I can finally get back into a rhythm with my class. (Now, 10 days may not seem like that long, but when they are almost every week and I have to spend at least a day after each one cleaning up the behavioral damage to my classroom, I am glad that I am done with these 10 PD days) I will not have to be out of the classroom until December and then it is for only 1 more day. I have had both great experiences and really (really) bad experiences with substitute teachers over the past few months and I am ready to face the months ahead with no interruptions. Now, don't get me wrong, I have appreciated every training that I have participated in and every day that I have been out of the classroom. This time away has allowed me to take a step back and realize what I love about teaching and reflect on what I can do to make it a better year for me and my class of wonderful students.

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This last training that I was out for, was a 4-day observation of teaching strategies, that put all together are called G.L.A.D. or Guided Language Acquisition and Development. The basis for it is that students learn best when they are excited about what they are learning and that the best way to get students excited about something is to make it like a game. Well GLAD is all about doing that in a way that teaches language with a content area such as Science or Social Studies instead of through (sometimes) dry Language Arts lessons and grammar workbook pages. The way that GLAD is set up, is to help students work together and then eventually, help them work on their own to make the learning (and academic language) more permanent.

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I won't go into all of the gory details, but through this training, I was able to see that I was having more problems during our Language Arts time because I was making it too "boring" and not about things that my students really care about. I realized that I need to be more cunning in the way that I go about teaching language and grammar to my students. Not only will it be more fun for my students but it will also be more fun for me since I will not have to deal with as many behavior problems! (At least that is my hope) So, I am finally moving my students back into groups today (since the rows really didn't help minimize the talking at all) and getting back on track with why I really went into teaching in the first place… Because it is fun!

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Sorry for this long blog post with no pictures, but maybe I can get some photos up of my class at the Tech Museum from this past Friday to keep you interested :)