What I Have Implemeted From NTI

There are several things from summer semester at NTI that have been very helpful however, for me as a first year teacher I would have to say the lesson plans have been the biggest benefit. I say this because before NTI this summer, I had not seen a LP and my first semester was very stressful because I was coming up with LP’s at the last minute and they were inadequate. The NTI LP is so detailed that affords me the opportunity to constantly work on my classroom management because I know that if I am not into my set induction during the first few minutes of class, then there is a great chance that I won’t complete the lesson. I feel a bit more organized and I have a road map for what it is that I’m doing everyday so this semester has been a lot less stressful. This semester I have a good group of students with the majority being upperclassmen. Thus far I haven’t had any major behavioral issues but occasionally I have to use some of the lower level strategies such as the “to me to you” statement which seems to work very well. Also, whereas last year I spent more time at my desk, now I move throughout the class to monitor student activity and this helps deter them form going overboard and getting really out of hand. There were also some sample logs that I received during summer semester that I use daily and have been a tremendous help since this semester at least two are required by my administrators. In addition I incorporated some of the parent/student logs in to my syllabus. During pre-planning I made copies of all the documents from my NTI notebook that I thought I might need to quickly access and transferred them to a smaller notebook given to me by my principal that I keep it on my desk while my NTI “bible” is safe at home.