PLN #8 3/9-3/16

Are you Bringing Your ‘A’ Game for Your Students? 25 Questions

This was an interesting read about teachers bringing their 'A' game for their students everyday. She poses 25 questions she recommends teachers ask themselves to reflect on and help motivate teachers to continuously improve and bring energy to the classroom. I'm to test myself on each question and see where I stand. Here are the 25 questions:

1. Do you set the tone of respect by showing your students respect? Yes, I greet my students everyday at the door before every class. I comment on the new sneakers, hairdo, or ask them how their day is going.
2. Do you model lifelong learning (if you aren't inspired to learn, why should your students be)? I make it a point to tell my students that I have not stop going to school since I graduated high school. I tell them their are other options besides college but the key is to always learn something new. 
3. Would you want to be a student in your classroom? Yes, because I motivate, cool and hilarious. Haha
4. Do you regularly look for ways to better serve your students? I'm always looking for tech or ways to differentiate my lessons.
5. Do your students have opportunities to make choices about how they learn in your classroom? Yes and no. I'm in the process of creating other ways for students to reach the final goal. My colleague, Mrs. Rodriguez has a template that she gives students every week with a list of activities that have to be completed by the end of the week. The students can pick and choose what activities they want to complete.
6. Do your students have opportunities to make choices about how they demonstrate what they've learn in your classroom? As of now, only with their projects. The students usually have 3 or 4 ways to present their projects.
7. Is the homework that you assign providing students an opportunity to connect what they are learning to the world around them? No. I'm still trying to figure out how to do that effectively with Spanish.
8. If a student demonstrates on an assessment that they don't understand something, do they have an opportunity to correct that? If not, why not? Yes, they do.
9. Are students afforded the opportunity to master what they are learning in your classroom (or do you just move on whether they've learned it or not)? Yes. If they students don't get a 90 or better, they have the opportunity to re-take it until they get a 90. Most students don't take me up on the offer.
10. Do you throw up your hands and say, “I have no choice … the system makes me to do this”? Everyday.
11. Are you having fun teaching? No.
12. Have you thanked a student lately? No.
13. How aggressively do you look for ways to allow students to learn and demonstrate learning in a way that works for them? I feel as if I'm not as aggressive as I want or need to be. I will have dedicate time this summer to look for different ways for students.
14. If you're forced to “teach to the test”, do you feel that means you have no choice about how you teach? As a Spanish teacher, I just laugh at that notion and ignore it.
15. Do you require students to be quiet, sit still, and just listen? Only when I'm talking. I generally talk for the first 5-10 minutes, and then students are off in groups working on their tasks.
16. Do you think flexibility in your classroom equals a loss of control? Not at all. If one has good classroom management skills, that allows you to be as flexible as you can be.
17. Do you feel that it's not your responsibility to motivate your students to learn? It is my responsibility.
18. If you had the choice to make again, would you be a teacher? Yes.
19. Does the homework you assign have enough value to make it worth taking away a student's opportunity to do extracurricular activities, have a life, chill a little, or get enough sleep? The homework I assign is always pertinent to what we are learning. No work should have enough value where it would affect someone's life.
20. Have you “always taught this way”? No. The way I taught 10 years ago is different with the way I teach today.
21. Do you make a point of trying to get to know your students? Yes. I do a survey at the beginning of the year and that helps me tailor my lessons to students' needs and interests.
22. Is your classroom focused predominantly on you, or on your students? The students.
23. Do students have opportunities to make choices regarding some homework activities (selecting from a range of options for example)? At this point, no.
24. Are you helping your students learn how to learn? I'm helping my students acquire and discover.
25. Would you want your children to be in a classroom like yours? Yes, like I said, I motivate, I'm cool and I'm funny.

This was a good questionnaire to assess what and how I am doing with my students. My strengths are that I look for different ways to reach my students and the focus is on the students. My weakness is that I offer no differentiation when it comes to students being able to select how they meet the objective.