HAPPY NEW YEAR! 🎉
This year, I’m teaching THREE classes: Physics, Making Hacking & Tinkering (MHT), and AP Computer Science Principles (APCSP). I’m looking forward to learning about teaching a new course. The last couple of years, teaching MHT rekindled my joy for programming. I remember enjoying the coding classes during high school and undergrad. I thought I should take some moments before the school year really gets going to think about some resolutions for this school year.
Resolutions:
- Include more lab-based assessments across all classes. I feel like I did not do a great job of acknowledging the student’s improvement of lab skills throughout the year. It wasn’t until the 4th quarter that the Physics team and I thought we should start including more lab-based questions on our summative assessments. This year, we’ll start from Unit 1!
- Be more intentional with assignments. Some situations, I assigned some practices because that is what we assigned the year before. There were some moments where more practice could have been used, but also sometimes the extra practice was a bit overkill.
- Improve maximizing class time. There were times when there was a lull in class, and it could have been better used by including a reflection or practice assignment. Although this goal is useful for improving the Physics and MHT courses, this resolution is more for APCSP. I want the students to find their in-class time useful as it will be a hybrid class.
- Keep the bus moving. When I attended the NSTA conference in Atlanta a couple years ago, I will never ever forget the keynote, Ron Clark. He presented his book , “Move Your Bus.” In this book, we have to visualize a Flinstone-esque bus (think a vehicle with the holes punched through and human feet keep it moving). Essentially, it was learning how to identify the driver (leaders), runners (positive workers), joggers (workers who don’t push), walkers (getting dragged along), riders (negative nay-sayers). I don’t want to be the rider or walker for my teams or school. Hence, my goal for the year is to keep the bus moving!
Hope everyone out there is having an awesome beginning of the school year season!
Learning with Ms. Medrano 