3rd New Beginning

Welcome, 2009. I'm a fully registered teacher with a permanent teaching position and about to start my third year of teaching.

One good thing about this career is that each new year can be seen as a fresh new start; taking all the good things from last year and adapting them, and taking all the bad things from last year and.. well adapting them.

This 'start-of-year' round I will take a mental note of student behaviours on day one, to assess for possible problem areas.  Normally students are a bit reticent on day one, slowly emerging from their shells as they get to know you.  Last year, they we're a bit too 'loose' with their own conversations during class discussions or teacher directions - this led to a whole year of struggling to have an appropriate environment where all students listened to one another and felt confident enough to take the risk of sharing to all students.  I realise now that if I see a similar 1st day lack of concern for listening to others, I will need to set some very firm routines and protocols in that first term to hopefully allow for a positive environment for sharing, learning, and discussing throughout the rest of the year.

A mixture of team-building fun but also strict expectations on behaviours during independent learning, group work, whole class work (particularly appropriate noise levels in those different situations).

Leading by example

I think I have begun to use exemplars less, and I don't think it's such a good thing.  I must consciously choose to do so.

Also, I need to work on promoting group and whole-class discussions where students share more and I less.