We have... how many weeks left?!?!

Once again time has amazed me. With my forth week concluding, I can't help but wonder where the time has gone? How did I go from a junior that was scared out of my mind at the thought of teaching kids to now teaching a full week by myself?! I have fallen into a routine, but I continue to push myself to find ways to engage the students more and more.

This week I have been looking at different ways to get students to review information that we have covered in class. After introducing new information to students I always do some type of review, practice or extended thinking within the lesson. I have been using a kahoot game, flash cards, student written stories, songs or poems, video clips and worksheets to complete this task. I don't feel as though these are getting stale but I want to do more. I have this awesome sheet that has different ways to check for understanding and I often find myself referring to it for new ideas. I also like doing review games. One thing I have noticed in group review is the students who pick up information quickly can be over-powering. I have tried to ofset this by making these games more individually based but I am not sure I have mastered this yet. I plan to look for new ways and refine the ways I have to review material.

Obviously, classes are all very different. One thing I didn't focus on until this week is making each class tailored to what works best. 3 of the 4 classes I teach are taught for 2 separate periods a day. I noticed that one class does really well with group work while the other does not. My one class in particular are a very great class. They listen contently, do what I ask of them and complete their work. We have learned about different systems of the body previously and it was a very teacher centered classroom. This week for the digestive system I made it a student centered classroom and it worked out very well. However, when I did this with another class it didn't go well at all! It's more work for me to plan differently for 2 classes that I am teaching the same material. However, I find it to be a much better use of class time which makes it more than worth it.