Back to School: 2013 edition

After nine whole 2013/14 school days with students, I can safely say that things are starting to "get normal."  Since I do employ a lot of structure in my classroom, teaching students about my classroom is as imperative as the new national standards into which we'll be diving.

Since I am at a new school, I'm particularly reflective about structure when it comes to adolescents, especially in light of technology and socioeconomic status.

At a former school, the free/reduced lunch rate was near 90% in the district.  Many parents had more than one job, worked horrible hours, and/or had multiple families living under the same roof.  For my students at that school, this meant that a family structure was not practiced.  Knowing this, I had to spend a great deal of time practicing classroom procedure and structure at the beginning of the year.  As the year went on and students became experts in classroom procedure, they rocked it.  The structure benefited them greatly.

When it comes to technology, students didn't have much.  Some of them had smartphones, but this wasn't a reliable situation.  Most didn't have computers or internet at home.  This meant that I had to set up a situation where students could get access to a computer in the classroom in the event they couldn't stay after school to gain access to the library computers.  To accommodate this, I actually built my own computer, brought it in, connected it to the school network, and let students use the teacher computer regularly.

At my new school, most students would likely be classified as middle class.  Almost 90% of students have access to some sort of device.  I still must teach classroom procedure, but many catch on more quickly since they are more likely to have had parents who set up procedures at home when they were young.  Since many students will fall into procedure quickly, this allows me to focus on students who do not, especially as the dust settles on the new year.

I'm excited to try some new things and I'm so pumped to be working with a crew of people who want to implement engaging practices into the classroom.  It feels like the perfect fit for me as a passionate educator.  I just can't wait to get settled and push myself to be an amazing educator so that my students are super stars.

Here are some of the things I've been able to implement as I start the 2013/14 school year:

• www.evansenglish.me: Students have open access to everything on this site. You do, too.  On this site, I will post daily assignments so that absent students may get their work.  Some students have been able to return to school without being behind because they could finish the work at home without infecting others with their illnesses.  This is also awesome for homeboud students (I already have at least one) because students may print off worksheets at home, get work done in class, and even watch demonstrations of methods we use in class.
• Remind101: As you may see on my site, students are able to subscribe to text updates; these updates may be links to the post for the day (which they can totally open on a smartphone), reminders to bring certain items to class, or even just quick "happy weekend" notes.  So far, it's working well.  I have about a 70% subscription rate.  Just a few of those may be parents.
• Digital Bell-Ringers: While I'm still in the beta practice with this (no assignments have counted as a grade), students have been participating in digital bell-ringers using a short-link to a Google Form.  I'm hoping to set this up so that students will eventually have to sign in with their school account so I can tie the answers to their names and give them grades for these.  I only do this a couple times a week at most.  I may search for an easier way to grade students on these days, but I do want the link to be the same for every event.  I look forward to fine-tooning this exercise.  
• Flipping: I've partially flipped a lesson. We started a text interaction activity in class; a demonstration was posted online and students were to use the demonstration to help them complete the rest of the assignment over the long weekend. Also, I've partially flipped notes.  I gave some notes in my class and required students to finish what we didn't get through in class.  This is nice for obvious reasons: Students don't want homework, so they may be encouraged to keep distractions down.  Students who wanted to finish the notes were able to log on to the website and watch the notes (complete with explanations) so they could get all the notes and not be held up by slower writers.

Here are some things I hope to implement fully as the year goes on:

• Independent Reading Activities: This will help students fill in free time when they finish early or feel they have nothing to do.  During any free time, students will read an independent book.  I'm hoping to develop some sort of reading challenge--something like this.
• Non-Fiction Fridays: This idea is courtesy of a current colleague; students are assigned a Friday to present a hot-topic article complete with analysis and will lead the class in a quick discussion.
• Self-Leading Projects: Students will lead some sort of independent project themselves.  One page on the website will provide directions and students will complete the work on their own time. 
• Google's 20% Time: I'd love to do this with my sophomores.  Doubt I'll get to it until the last quarter, but this could tie into the Self-Leading Projects, where students spend 20% of the week working on their own projects.  This could be a blog-based project or something else.  I'd love for it to be digital.  Tech literacy is so important.

So, there we have it: Beginning-of-the-year impressions.  It'll be interesting to see my end-of-year reflection. I look forward to seeing myself grow and to seeing how much my teenagers will mature throughout the year.

PS: I will also love it when my reputation is reestablished at this new location.  Mrs. Evans, for real, is known as tough but students say they learn a lot from her.  (I'm Mrs. Evans.)