Blogging Challenge Day 1

Hey, remember me? Well I've gotten quite a few e-mails lately asking if I was ever going to blog again so I thought I'd check in and assure the ten people that are still reading this that I am in fact alive. So there were a bunch of reasons that things were so quiet around here all year, some of which I'll probably talk about. I do like blogging though, especially before school starts, because it does help me process all the things that went well and not so well during the year and helps to get ready for the new year. This year though I didn't really know what to blog about or where to start thinking. I was tired of feeling like I was posting the same things over and over (notebook pages and posters) so I decided I'd try out a blogging challenge I found. It's from last year, and not specific to math but I thought there were some interesting prompts in there that were things I'd like to think about. So if anyone else is stuck in the same rut as me, I'd love it if you joined me!

Reflective Teaching: A 30-Day Blogging Challenge For Teachers

DAY 1: Write your goals for the school year. Be as specific or abstract as you’d like to be.

1. Do a better job at SBG
   Three years ago I started using Standards Based Grading (and wrote a bunch about it last summer) but this year I don't feel like I did as good of a job with it as I could have. I still think it's great and does great things for my classroom but this year I feel like I got way too overwhelmed and just didn't do as well with it as I could have. I taught four different courses this year and just had too hard of a time trying to keep up with four sets of skill lists, quizzes, re-quizzes, and all that. This upcoming year I'll only have two courses to keep up with (cross your fingers for me that nothing changes in the next month!) and I also have an awesome teacher at my school that is going to try it with me this year so I'm hoping that it'll be more manageable this year. I also went to a workshop during the year that talked about SBG and had some really great ideas I plan to implement (more on this another time).
2. Find a good work/life balance
   This one is part of the reason I stopped blogging this year. In the past, I haven't done a particularly job of having a non-school life. I'd spend all day at school (usually getting there early and staying late) and then come home and keep doing work, or thinking about school, blogging about school, etc. This year I got out of this rut and did a much better job of leaving work at school. I left my work at school when I went home for the day and had more of a non-school life when I came home. I've spent the past couple summers doing work at home all summer and going into my room as often as possible. I'm pleased to say that I've not been into my room once yet and I have no plans to go there anytime soon (we don't start until September). This year was extremely stressful for me so in part this was necessary for my sanity, but it's something that I'd like to keep up. So if you were hoping for more regular posts from me once school starts, that may not happen. But when things are all quiet here it usually means that I'm out doing more exciting things, which is a win for me.
3. Grad School
   This year will be my 10th year of teaching and I'm finally getting the itch to go back to school. I always figured that I would someday but still wasn't sure what I wanted to go back for and I definitely didn't want to change my mind once I started. I also didn't want to go back and then get too overwhelmed trying to manage work and going to school I found a great program that will give me lots of options and because it's online I think it'll be manageable while I work.