A Good Day

7 Hours of sleep and lots of preparation make for a really good day. To cut down on wasting time in class I prepared everything that I was going to write on the chalkboard on sticky easel pad sheets. I was able to have color-coded notes, pictures, etc. The other bonus is that I was able to move around the room. This doesn't sound like a big deal, but for classroom management, proximity is a key factor: the student is many times less likely to act up if the teacher is nearby. So, you just make sure you make it a habit of moving around the room rather than being tethered to the chalkboard/overheard. This way, you are more dynamic and the students know that you can easily move near them if they are getting out of hand.

Both lessons went pretty well because of the preparation and fun demonstrations. We were learning about forces. So we demonstrated gravity, tension (the beginning of tug of war), and friction and did a lab involving friction as well. The students were much more engaged and interested than last Wednesday.

The students also seemed to like the chart and they recognized the need to work hard to get their bars up to our goal of 80%. The jobs went over well, too, as many students were happy to get some responsibilities in class. The result was two fold: class became more efficient and students were better behaved due to having an important role in class.


Tomorrow should go well, too. I do have to end on a funny story. It was just a matter of time until a procedure to get on the elevator was developed. We had a pretty long line today as one of the elevators was broken and many people were taking the stairs. Someone decided to get everyone into two lines--one for the elevator and one for the stairs. I just found it funny as it was one more set of directions to follow, one more procedure, one more way of doing something in a standardized way. Yes, I was looking for someone with a stopwatch and paper to see how long it took to get on the elevator or stairs (luckily, I found no one).