Two New Thoughts
It occurred to me the other day, during my 1st period class, that one of my students moves much more quickly than the others through the material. I'm trying to think about what I ought to do about that. It hasn't been too bad thus far because I've had enough put together that I can just give him the next thing to work on. I can always have him work on the homework but I'm worried that he'll finish that too quickly. I need to get something put together for students like this. Maybe I should get some geometry puzzles. Did I mention that I'm only teaching geometry this semester (I'm not counting the Academic Support course that I teach 7th period because it has always gone pretty smoothly)? Well, I am. Puzzles are good for developing 3D perspective, which will help my students when we get into volume & surface area.
The second thought that I've had is that I need to get a better sub binder put together. I should try to do that today at some point. This came to my attention because I needed to get a sub to come in for me today as I'm here at the hospital with my dad. I'm not going to go into the details here because that's not what I want the focus of this blog to be. Suffice to say, I'm out of my classroom today and it seems that it might be nice for my sub if I have a good folder with stuff in it. I'm thinking this is what ought to be in there:
- Class seating charts
- Notes for each class on what to watch out for with specific students
- Notes about the lesson plan for the day
- step-by-step guide for what needs to be done
- what I expect the students to get out of the class
- what formative assessments I would like done
- Notes about my classroom rules & expectations
- Who to call if things are confusing
- Who to call if things go wrong
What I have right now is a letter written out with the lesson plan and some random notes on it about things that may or may not be useful. I've been thinking that I need a good sub plan more recently thanks to my friend's substitute blog, "Substitution Please". His posts are enlightening, I think. Anyway, substitutes. I need to be better to them. That's what I'm sayin'.
One other thing I've heard, that can be good for subs, is to leave a list of "which students you should ask if you need something". It can be 2 or 3 students you trust, for when the sub needs something, but it is not so important that they should go to admin. Just a though.
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