Balance. This is something I try to find in my teaching. Balance between being nice and being strict. Balance between building foundations and challenging the limits of student thinking. Balance between predictable routine and thinking outside the box. Balance between direct instruction and activity-based learning.
With all the changes that are coming with Common Core and Smarter Balanced Assessments, I feel the tension of this balance even more. What can I do to prepare my students for a new (and yet to be determined) standardized assessment? How can I help shape them into more critical thinkers? How does that affect the way I teach, the homework I give, and the expectations I have for my students? I want my classroom to be one that exposes them to technology and is a place where high cognitive demand is expected and achieved.
As a math department this year, we have been revising the 7th grade curriculum to include such things. Some ideas have been successful, and others have not. It is my goal this semester to try to assess and clean up our work in attempts at improving the curriculum and increase academic rigor for next year.
Being the first time through, I think we often are operating in "survival mode"...sometimes only a day ahead of the students. It is difficult to find time to stop and assess the successes and areas of improvement in what we just completed because the pressures of tomorrow are creeping in. And there it is again...balance!
With all the changes that are coming with Common Core and Smarter Balanced Assessments, I feel the tension of this balance even more. What can I do to prepare my students for a new (and yet to be determined) standardized assessment? How can I help shape them into more critical thinkers? How does that affect the way I teach, the homework I give, and the expectations I have for my students? I want my classroom to be one that exposes them to technology and is a place where high cognitive demand is expected and achieved.
As a math department this year, we have been revising the 7th grade curriculum to include such things. Some ideas have been successful, and others have not. It is my goal this semester to try to assess and clean up our work in attempts at improving the curriculum and increase academic rigor for next year.
Being the first time through, I think we often are operating in "survival mode"...sometimes only a day ahead of the students. It is difficult to find time to stop and assess the successes and areas of improvement in what we just completed because the pressures of tomorrow are creeping in. And there it is again...balance!
Important topic I think.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of being an exemplar, you would want to add more for being complete: maybe a specific example of an item added to the curriculum? Maybe an example of when you made a conscious decision on the assess/coverage scale to be better balanced.
I do think survival mode - accepting approximation is one of the ways we seek balance.