Week 7

This was another very eventful week for me at Selinsgrove Area High School.  As you all know, I'm teaching on a block schedule so this was the week that I started teaching a second class.  This calls for more structured time management, learning new names, and becoming more familiar with course content.  

Aside from that I have been proceeding with my two personal finance classes, and all has been going well there also.  I am still having to learn the material prior to teaching it, but to a large extent I just need a refresher.  My classes seem to be more interested in this material than they were originally when I started with the Federal Reserve System, which makes perfect sense because the material I am in the midst of now more closely pertains to their individual lives.  This includes topics like budgeting, banking, check writing, etc.  

I had to address a few classroom management issues this week, but nothing that was too dramatic.  My classes have been going well for the most part, and there has never been a time when I have felt like the effort I put into it wasn't worth it. 

If there was one thing I could go back and change, I would have made a more conscious effort to go out of my way to individually get to know each student in my new classes prior to this week.  I had been going around and talking to each one, asking what their plans were after high school (especially since it's a career prep course) and trying to find individual characteristics of each student.  However, I was not as thorough as I would have liked to been so now I have a little catching up to do.

One thing that was most beneficial to me this week was trying a few new strategies in teaching.  I developed some in-class assignments so that students could "learn on their own" with my guidance.  This worked even better than I expected, and is something that I plan to use with appropriate balance throughout the rest of the semester.  I have found that I tend to want to "have my hand" in what the students are doing, yet most of my students tend to learn best from being held responsible for new content by giving them guided assignments (that correspond with my instruction) to do in class.  This tied in well with my teaching and I was happy that I utilized this approach.

Overall, another good week.  If nothing less, we are just about half way home :) Good luck to everyone else out there! Keep pluggin' away.