I officially had the perfect class period. It was brief but it was glorious.
Here's the set-up: I am in a group from my school that is doing blended learning. Blended learning means that some of the learning is in a traditional classroom and some of it has online aspects. Specifically, I am trying what is called the in-flip model. That means that my students watch a video of the lecture in class and then start the practice. (What they don't finish of the practice becomes homework) The reason I like this so much is that students who are absent aren't really missing the lecture and students who want to review a topic can easily hear the entire lecture again or even pause it and re-watch certain parts of it.
Our technology department asked those of us in this blended group to give them a time they could come by to see our blended classroom. (Side note: the two people who lead our technology department are awesome and I feel 100% comfortable around them so this was a really easy request for me) I told them that 2nd period on Thursday would be ideal. I have a really great Algebra I class at that time. So Thursday rolls around and between first and second period I see our tech people . . . along with our assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction! One of the tech people pulls me aside and tells me that he dropped by and she said that she hoped it was ok that he was going to observe my classroom. Well, it made me a little nervous but, eh, what's one more person? Second period has about 25 students in there so I had room for a few more people.
So class starts and my observers were kind enough to give me a few minutes to start class before they came in. My class were superstars! They were focused and on-task. When asked questions, they answered honestly and their answers were great! The three observers got to see how a student who was absent the previous day was able to easily catch up on his work. Another student said that he really liked the video lessons because he could go at his own pace. So this was all happening while I was walking around helping with technical problems, answering questions, etc. Then I noticed someone who was not doing the notes. I walked over and realized that it was the assistant principal of curriculum and instruction! I said hello to her and thought, "Oh goodness, that another person watching me. Ok, uh, at least it's an administrator with whom I have a very good relationship." Not ten minutes later I noticed that I had another visitor! It was the executive director of secondary education. So at this point I had five adults (other than myself) in my classroom ranging from my co-workers all the way to one-step from the superintendent. I was sweating bullets.
Then I had a moment where I really shone: I saw on my computer (via an awesome website called EdPuzzle) that a majority of my students were getting a comprehension question wrong from the video. I thought "Oh no. This is a major concept. I need to clarify this before we have a whole class of confused students" So I got all of my students' attention and pointed out what the correct answer was and why. Then the students went back to their individual work. One of the tech people asked me if I knew that I needed to address that topic because of the previous night's homework. I pointed out that it was actually from real-time data and I think she really liked that. :)
All of this is to say that thanks to my awesome students and the support of my wonderful family (especially my husband) and the admin team at my school, I feel like I am really stepping-up my game as a teacher. I also have classes (and let's be honest, whole school days) where I feel that I'm totally lost but I think those days are growing fewer. Here's to always moving forward!
-Clare G. S.
Bonus for reading this whole thing: a video of me from just before the school year started:
