geek.teacher

Finally!  It’s over!  I’m looking forward to some much need R&R, vacation to Montreal in a couple of weeks, getting some serious and not so serious reading in, a little game time, and, of course, preparing for next year.  A big part of that, of course, involves looking back on the year that just passed.  Somewhere in all of the paperwork that I had to do at the end of the year, my district requires me to fill out an Appraisal Summary.  I’m going to throw myself to the wolves and throw mine out there.  Given the nature of the process and the form it’s an overwhelmingly positive look at how I did, and I think for now I’ll keep all of the stuff I think I could have done better to myself, since throwing my faults out there to the world makes me kind of uncomfortable still.

Please list your activities for the year and or attach a log.

Goal: Promote safety, character development, and positive relationships at all times.

In September the class spent the first few weeks establishing rules, routines, and procedures.  Students were made aware of the rules and consequences of the behavior plan, and a letter was sent home to parents describing it.  Parents were also given more information at back to school night.  

Since then the rules have been consistently reinforced and reviewed as necessary.  Students are given daily behavior sheets to be signed by parents each night.  All students are consistently earning between 48 and 50 points a day out of 50 points possible.  Students are given multiple opportunities throughout the week to share about themselves with the other students and are reinforced to talk and listen appropriately.

Students have been referred to work with the Social Worker and/or Behavior Consultant as needed.  

Describe how this experience enhanced your professional growth.
I strongly feel that I have really hit my stride this year in terms of my classroom management.  Overall, this year’s class turned out to be by far the most well-behaved group that I have had in my six years of teaching, and they were certainly not all predisposed to the behaviors we developed when they started.  Students that didn’t want to work or volunteer at the beginning of the year are doing so now.  A student who was exhibiting behavior outbursts regularly early on in the year has had only one in the entire second half of the year, and he calmed down from it faster than ever before.  One parent told me her child did almost no work in previous school years and now loves coming to school.  Another parent has noticed a difference in her child’s behavior not just in my classroom, but also in his afterschool program and at home.  I think it also helps that I genuinely became comfortable this year in working with people outside of my classroom to help me meet these goals.  [Behavior Consultant] and [Social Worker] were supremely influential in my students’ lives this year, and working together with them really helped me to make sure everything I did was focused on helping my students meet their own individual behavior needs both in my classroom and outside of it.

Please list any additional activities and accomplishments
Student Council Co-Advisor

• This year we ran four dances, ran two successful door decorating contests that saw schoolwide support, bought Christmas presents for two families and Thanksgiving dinner for another, and donated $2500 to the American Cancer Society.

Inservice trainer

• I ran a half-day inservice training on doing progress notes using the Cleartrack online Special Education paperwork program.

Professional Development
I attended several professional development programs which have had an influence on my teaching methods and approaches:

• Reading Apprenticeship – An overview of different strategies that can be used to assist students with reading comprehension
• Structured Teaching for the Included Child at the Timothy School – gave me lots of information about students with autism and strategies for helping them both academically and socially
• Conference on Students and Electronic Media at Princeton University – Gave me lots of information about online computing tools and strategies for mixing them into content areas as well as giving me an opportunity to network with people from around the country working on and learning about these areas

There you have it.  I’d type up my evaluation, but, honestly, it’s rather generic, and we can only be Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory.  Obviously, since I’m not pooping my pants right now, I got an S.

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