Becoming a Master Teacher

I apologize that I missed yesterday's due date for this post. I lost power at my house at about noon yesterday and am just now getting it back. We had some power lines fall down the road from us and catch on fire due to the storm.

One of the biggest improvements that I think I have made when comparing this year to last year (before NTI) is giving students guidelines for assignments that are much more clear. I am using various forms of rubrics to explain to students my expectations on various assignments and they have really responded to it so much better. Last year, I would give a rubric for a project, but I do not think I truly understood the concept of creating a good rubric. Even after I gave students the rubric I still got many questions that I would not have gotten had I been more clear of my expectations. I started a project in my classes just last week and upon going over the rubric and guidelines with my classes, I could tell simply by their responses to the assignment that I had given them a clear understanding of what I expected of them. They really seemed to enjoy getting a project in which they understood the direction in which they needed to go.

Another thing that has truly helped me be more successful when assigning projects is giving specific deadlines throughout the project to insure that students are on task to finish it by the scheduled due date. Last year, which was my first year teaching, I would give projects with only one due date and that date was when I expected the completed project to be done. Well, I developed a bad taste for projects because I had students that wasted time and had nothing when the due date arrived. I have learned that just by holding them accountable throughout leads to much better results.

It is truly amazing to see how implenting "little tricks" can improve classroom operation so much!