Planning & Performance Tasks

Wow, it's been almost a month since I reflected on here... time flies when you are having fun (or super busy).  Just have time for a quick update, so here it goes...

All three of the grades I teach (five classes in total) are well into their second unit.  My 6th graders have started Comparing Bit's & Pieces, my 7th graders are almost done with Comparing & Scaling, and my 8th graders are in the middle of Growing, Growing, Growing.  I am still using CMP3 as my main curriculum, but I have been cutting out more, condensing, and adding in lots of other enrichment tasks.  For example, my 7th graders have explored Icy Hot, The New Twenty, Civic Duty, and Coupon Clipping, while my 8th graders have explored Flix, Billions & Billions, and this week my 6th graders will explore Jen Ratio, all from Mathalicious, which I am grateful that my coworker introduced me to last year, and I encourage every middle/high school math teacher to check out.

My 6th graders have also Made Their Own Product Game, and tomorrow my 8th graders will be Predicting Their Own Financial Future, both from Illuminations.  My 7th graders also played the Stock Market Game and invested "$1,000" into real stocks and tracked them, and researched different careers and hourly wages.  Math Club explored Sissa's Reward from NRICH, and the Handshake Problem, also from Illuminations.  I also just introduced them to Alcumus from The Art of Problem Solving, and I am finally getting to explore the Math of Voting during an election year, which I was first exposed to during my Bank Street years.  I've also brought in some Illustrative performance tasks this year.  Speaking of Bank Street, I am going to the Math Saturday this weekend and am looking forward to it.

Overall I'm happy with how things are going, and I do see progress from last year.  I'm not going to lie, planning for three grades and five classes is a lot, but I am finding balance.  It would be nice to be able to get a little ahead in terms of long-term planning and grading, but I am making it work.  I will be sending out my first student surveys in a couple of weeks, and students will be taking the first interim assessment since their baselines, so I'll have the data to look at.

#YouCanLearnAnything

Yes, it's sad to slowly leave behind the freedom of Summer, but with each passing day, I am getting more and more (mostly) excited about the upcoming school year.  I had my first of three PDs today.  Today's PD with Teaching Matters was about facilitating teacher teams, which I have done at my school for the past year (PS check out this page to see a pic of me in action on the Teaching Matters website).  Tomorrow's PD will focus on the data action process, which I am hoping will give me some new tools to add to my facilitator tool box.  Speaking of data, I am almost finished reading Driven By Data, which is definitely going on my Most Influential Literature list in my Math Leadership Portfolio.  I also dusted off my copy of The First Six Weeks of School, which is another sign that Summer is ending, but on a more serious note, probably one of the books that had the most influence on my becoming a much better teacher.  I highly recommend.

Lastly today, I found this short video clip on my Facebook feed for Khan Academy (which I have used with my 7th graders in the past) and am pretty sure I found my classroom motto for the upcoming school year... #YouCanLearnAnything