KJ; Reflecting on the first weeks of school

The one thing I have been most impressed with to this point is utilizing a warm up. Last year I had no idea what a warm up was or even how to put the concept into place. I would let them come in and talk quietly as group while I got my teacher duties out of the way and got prepared to start class. This year after hearing many ideas during NTI, I settled on the “Quote of the Day” and tied it into their work ethic grade. They are to read the quote, take a moment to reflect on it, then, right me a paragraph on what it means to them. Several times we have broken off into a 10-15 minutes of discussion on how they feel the quote can help them better their study habit and/or their life in general. This part is amazing to me, once they open up and you show them respect for their opinions, they show even greater respect for you a person and a mentor. Out of my three blocks, one class in particular seems to enjoy this 5 minute exercise more than the other two.

Now on to the negative, I still struggle with time management as a whole. While I feel I’m more prepared for class this year, I struggle with the maintaining a steady pace with my Engineering Drawing and Design Class. I’ll have about 6-8 students (Group 1) that grasp what I am showing them to do and have another 6-8 (Group 2) that with a little one on one time will come around to what I am showing them. Then there is the rest of the class that looks at me like I am speaking a foreign language to them and will take the entire class period and some time two days to understand. I feel like if I keep giving the moving forward with group 1, group 3 will never catch up. On the other side of the coin, if I continue to work with group 3, I am not being fair to group 1. For this most part I utilize group 1 as student teachers to help out group 2. Is this a good idea or not?