Friday, January 1, 2010

New Year's resolutions

Well, I disappeared for a while. I resolve to REMIND myself of my summer good intentions, my best success stories, and RECOMMIT to breaking bad habits and reinforcing new habits of mind.

* ABI - committed as ever.

* WBT - I am not there. Yet recently I shared how much more successful an activity is when students are first directed to teach one another the directions. I know it, I know it ... but old habits are hard to break!

* RR - Like with WBT, I fall back on old habits. I send disruptive students out instead of having them send themselves out, if that makes sense. What does work miracles is the focus on building relationships. Yes, I do tire at times and "fall off the wagon." Not good. As soon as I snap out of it and resume follow-up talks after problem behavior, I do find improvement.

* Something new? I recently read about Team Based Learning in the January/February 2010 edition of neatoday. I cannot afford the fancy paper -- we've just been told we are out of both copy and lined paper, for goodness sake -- but I am going to try to incorporate more team-effort on high-stakes practice tests. Grading will not be an incentive, but bragging rights and/or little prizes might work. I'll let you know. I plan on giving this a try when we resume next week.

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