Spreadsheets/ Data

This weeks topic was on data and spreadsheets so I will reflect on how I take grades and use spreadsheets in my class...

As far as grading goes I let ProgressBook do most of the work for me. ProgressBook is an online system that my district uses across the board so that every teacher inputs grades into the same system. It does all of the calculating as far as interim grades and averages etc. Something that I do not deal with is weighted grades. I know some colleges that use weighted grades and I am not sure I even fully understand the math behind it... I work my grades into point values. Each project is worth a different amount of points according to the difficulty and time it takes to complete a project. The points are all added up in ProgressBook and it spits out their grade.

I do use Google Sheets (excel) for my SLO data and various field trip or collection check offs. I like how it keeps everything organized and it is so easily shared with anyone. I can share the list with the secretary and all the teachers and that way instantly they know who is attending the field trip and it is automatically updated with the current list of names. I think Google Docs and Sheets has really helped in this way because I do not have to have multiple copies and send different versions of the same document.

I think I use spreadsheets more for myself and not necessarily in my classroom or for students. They make sense to me but I'm not sure if my students could decipher my thought process sometimes. Spreadsheets are great tools to collect evidence for OTES and for my personal use of organization.

ASL Club

The topic of this weeks blog post is not necessarily classroom related but it is something that has been on my plate recently that I wanted to reflect on. One of my smart goals for the year was to have more leadership roles in my building. I had some students approach me about running a sign language club after school and I loved the idea! I took ASL in high school as my foreign language and have always had a love for sign because I have a deaf aunt that has been in my life forever. I loved this idea and was hoping other students would love to join.

The club has been meeting every other Tuesday and we have had an amazing turn out! I would say on average we have 15-20 students a week. I am so proud of my "presidents" because they have been running everything. I put them in charge and they have new material planned for every week, they have made t-shirts and organized the ordering and the money and we already have them! I feel like the facilitator in the room and the students run the show! I love to see students learning sign and getting passionate about deaf culture.

Right now we are deciding what direction this club is going... is this going to be just for fun to learn some signs or would they like to preform at basketball games and go on local deaf outings. I am not sure how that will end out but we will see... I'm excited that this has taken off. It has fulfilled my smart goal of the year but its also really fun!

Observation

This week I had my second observation from my supervisor. One of my goals for this year is to create more student led projects and have student led discussions. My supervisor and district have been pushing this idea for some time and so I decided to make it one of my smart goals for this school year. I attempted this for my observation...

Overall I think it went really well and the students enjoyed leading the class. I had each student present information they found on an artist that uses Illustrator. This was used as the introduction to the unit the students will have on Illustrator. After the presentations I talked with the students on what their thoughts were on leading the class and if they would like to do this more often...

The students responses were that they are not comfortable talking about something they don't know. (I agree with them) They don't feel like they could lead the class in learning these techniques and the software because they have no prior knowledge on the subject matter or software skills. This is something that I have been trying to explain to my district for some time now. It is hard for me to let the students teach each other when they don't know what they are doing, and if they just guess, then everyone will be learning the wrong thing.

I know that a lecture style class every day is not ideal, and I try to mix it up and give the students plenty of other opportunities to learn and make it fun... but peer teaching in my classroom is very challenging. When I can I allow the students to "present"... I hope that my supervisor sees it the same way...

Parents

This week the battle was parent/teacher conferences... I was preparing all week the students work and grades so I would be prepared to discuss with the parents how their child was doing in my class. The parents have to sign up online and of course not all do, but I have about 8 conferences scheduled. I have had some difficult parents this year and I was concerned that the conferences would not go well but I was pleasantly surprised.

Each conference starts out with an explanation of their grades and showing them the work that their child has created thus far and if they have any questions of course. I let the parents lead the discussion and ask anything they want. It was surprising this week that almost every conversation turned into guidance on what school their child should attend and what software they should purchase.

I had a lot of discussions about the new Adobe CC monthly subscriptions student discount. I think this is a great deal for students to be able to work at home and the parents were very interested. My classroom just switched this year to CC and I am hoping it will not change soon. It seems that each year the software is updated and there is something new to learn! I don't think this will ever stop but I am hoping CC will stick around for awhile.

I always find it so interesting that the parents are not aware of the technology their children are using. The child is always more tech savvy than the parent. I think this is something that is "known" but is always an interesting conversation.