being prepared

I don't know about you guys ,but I'm finding out the more your students learn about a subject the harder it is to keep their attention and keep them busy for 90 minutes. I'm finding out that what was prepared 6 weeks ago is not prepared anymore.On the bright side I guess it shows that the students are learning, so that's a positive on the teacher. but on the bad side it can catch you unprepared sometimes ,which makes for a frustrating and slow day.

Planning

I'm starting to think that this last semester will be the most challenging as far as presenting material and making sure that the students retain the information. With the graduation test, then Spring Break in a couple of weeks, then end of course testing, and the nice weather outside all of this combined will make it difficult for me to present the material.

I'm planning to go ahead and present material the week before Spring Break that will be needed when we get back from the break. I just hope that I don't have to teach it all over again. This is my first time through this so I'm curious to see how the students will be in class with everything else going on.

Has anyone found it to be more difficult during the Spring semester to keep students involved? Just curious if I'm worrying about nothing.

Plan! Plan! Plan!

When it comes to time management as a teacher, I seem to always be trying to catch up, no matter how hard I attempt to plan. It appears that I always need to add one more thing to my “To do List”. My latest dilemma has been adding new students to my introductory technology classes in the middle of the semester. The CTE teachers in our county were told some numbers were low and adjustments needed to be made. To date I have added twenty new students since the beginning of the year. This amounts to a 22% increase of new students added my classes in the last three weeks and could go on for another several weeks until program objectives are met.
I have also had to create new logons and formulate plans to get the new students acclimated as quickly as possible in order to maintain the designated classroom flow we began with at the start of the semester. Starting with new students in the middle of the semester means teaching a different type of multi-level classes in the introductory phase of the program as well as teaching other multi-level advance classes, which requires more planning. By the way,we are also expected maintain the school's website. While, I am thrilled to get new students in my program, time and classroom management challenges continue to surface daily. This places my students and me in an at-risk situation. We are still expected to achieve and maintain quality results. I realize planning never stops, but now I have to really plan for the unexpected. Plan! Plan! Plan!

Never have enough time...

I'm not sure if you guys feel the same way that I do right now, but I always feel that I don't have enough time to get everything done. When I signed up for teaching, I had no idea how long it would take to prepare for my classroom. Everyone had told me that it would get better the second semester, and I have to say that it is better in a way but different. Let me explain. My first semester was just survival mode. This semester I'm working through all of my material again and trying to tweak to improve upon it. I have one problem though - I don't have enough time to create new and challenging projects to go along with the material. I feel as if I'm failing my students because I know that I can do a better job at this if was just given a little more time. I'm looking forward to this summer when I will be able to really think about improvements and work through the task analysis of the projects that I have floating through my head right now.

Not only do I feel overwhelmed with my classroom material, but the administrators are asking us to create "data centers", brochures for "open houses", and participate in SkillsUSA. Then I struggle with performing my best at GSU.

I know there are no real solutions right now other than to just hang in there and it will get better! I'm holding on to that thought until this summer.