After 2 months of getting used to my job as a technology coach, I’m back in the classroom teaching French. I have taken over 2 of the 3 classes that I taught for 2 weeks at the beginning of the year. Yes I thought I was done…guess I wasn’t! I’m telling myself that I will be in this position until the end of the school year to get my mind right. Like I told the students, the only thing that we can control in this situation is how we react. I’m trying to emulate flexibility for them. I have a lot of work to do to reign the back in and classroom management will be a challenge. But I am staying positive and hoping that I will also be able to be an example to other teachers for how to meaningfully integrate the iPad into lessons. We shall see 🙂
Tag: flexibility
Done!
I just taught my last class as a temporary French teacher at AIS 🙂 The new teacher arrived on Tuesday morning, shadowed me yesterday & today and will take over her full schedule (my 3 classes plus another French and a Spanish) on Sunday. It feels great to be done and I’m ready to be 100% committed to being a Technology Coach. I am, however, grateful that I had the opportunity to get to know some of the students at our school. In total, I now know 51 students in grade 9, 10 & 11. It was also nice to meet the Language B teachers and speak French. The head of department (HOD) also asked me if I would be willing to sub for her later in the year. This wasn’t the start I had envisioned for my school year, but overall I’m glad I had the opportunity to help the school 🙂
The fact that I am not teaching does NOT mean that I’ll stop collaborating with teachers across the world. I’m incredibly eager to introduce the staff to Twitter and the myriad of learning opportunities awaiting them and their students. If you are interested in class exchanges (for any subject & grade level), please contact me! We have 200 teachers and 1800 students to keep busy with iPads 🙂
Bon week-end!
Quick edit: it was incredibly interesting to be in a classroom in Kuwait as everything is going on near the US Embassy’s in our general vicinity. It was refreshing to have a conversation with students who can acknowledge that what the Americans did who made the movie was horribly wrong…but also that the response by some people in the Muslim states is juste as wrong. It’s not all Americans and it’s not all Muslims…and it’s too bad that a few people represent all of us.
Getting Student Input for Final Assessment
My block classes have finals in less than two weeks! Where has the semester gone?! Although we will still have one week of class after Christmas break, we are giving finals before break (I, personally, think this is amazing!).
This year I have really tried to go away from the paper/pencil assessments with my French 2 and 3 classes. Although it has been extremely hard for me not to be guided by a textbook, I think (HOPE!) my students understand better that communication and comprehension is key in learning a language. I have LOTS of things that I need to change for next semester (like be way more organized) but it has been a good learning experience for all.
Today I gave my French 3 students a survey to get their input on the final “exam.” Thanks to my awesome husband for the idea! We talked about how they hadn’t taken many traditional tests/quizzes this year so I didn’t think it would be fair to give them one for the final exam. I asked them to be specific about how they wanted to show me what they’d learned. I wanted details and how they thought they should be graded.
I got a lot of really great feedback (loved the idea from one student about a multi-genre project). Now just taking/finding the time to make an amazing final project…
te(a)ch french 