Blog Post 5

Blog post 5:  “Reflect on your time in the classroom to this point.  How are you feeling emotionally, physically?  Do you feel that you are getting through to your most difficult students? What strategies are working?  What strategies are not?   What are your next steps with student engagement within your classroom?”

At this point in the school year I am starting to feel better both emotionally and physically. I hit a low point about a month ago because I felt like I didn’t know which way I was going with everything especially lesson planning. I have managed to get through to a few of my really tough students and contacting parents has really helped me a great deal. Yesterday I got to see one of the parents that I worked with to get her son back on track and got to tell her that he is now doing great. That was a huge victory for me. The small group things that I have tried haven’t worked at all up to now but I plan on trying next semester after hammering home procedures. I have worked my way up to shoulder buddies and it is working nicely. I also have some new engagement strategies that I want to do next semester such as flyswatter. This is where you put the answers to questions on the board and two students compete to swat the answer with a flyswatter.