I wish I had a catchier title, but I guess this one will do.
We finished Institute about a week ago and moved back to our regions to prepare for the upcoming school year-- ahhhh!
So how did Institute work? I had 90 minutes of lead teaching and an hour of co-teaching every day, which means that over the course of Institute, I led-taught the equivalent of a week and a half in the 'real' teaching world. All of my kids were at grade level or above in math. My kids were awesome, adorable, and brilliant, and I miss them very much, but they probably weren't the best models to learn on. (On the other hand, a challenging class might have thrown me over the edge with the lack of sleep, so it might have worked out for the best.)
My class reached 92% of their growth goal, and the average growth from last year was only 63%! Could it have been higher? Oh yeah, but they went a 48% on the pre-assessment to a 74% on the post-assessment in 18 days. They hit 82% mastery of negative powers (pre-assessment score: 0%), and I was most proud of their 100% mastery of one-step equations involving multiplying and dividing integers. (I *cough* cried *cough* after teaching that objective.) Did I secretly want the highest growth of my school? Yes, of course-- I got into TFA; I am incredibly competitive-- but my kids rocked it, and I don't think anyone has any regrets.
Well, that's not entirely true: I do regret not asking for more help. In terms of seeking out additional resources, I think I did as much as I possibly could have, given my time constraints... I went to 2-3 workshops every week, visited the resource center a few times, and asked CMs and CMAs what had worked or hadn't worked in their rooms. My CMA wrote one AIT plan for me and gave me word problems for quite a few objectives because there was no way I was going to have time to write 60 word problems over the course of a weekend. However, I could have used a lot more help with writing problems for INM, GP, and IP (I had to write my own exit slips). I was allowed to ask other CMs for lesson plans toward the end of Institute, but it just so happened that most of my last objectives were the first objectives that the other CMs had taught. (In other words, the first LPs are uniformly pretty awful, and the only things I could take from them were problems.) (There were three other CMs at my school without partners, BUT someone provided them with the additional LPs. I was not amused when I heard this.)
The benefit to planning and teaching a double block is that I definitely got to hone my skill in writing lesson plans. While the others were working on CFUs, I was working on writing CFUs for particular students. While they were making sure their exit slips were aligned, I was scaffolding my exit slips so I knew to what extent the students had mastered the objective. (The same material that other CMs got at a recent "rigor in mathematics" discussion was material that I got during the third week of Institute. I still have a long way to go in pushing the rigor during instruction and on assessments, but I actually tend to overdo the conceptual material and forget to leave time for students to work on the procedural part. Most CMs privilege procedural knowledge over conceptual. This might be the English major in me coming out.)
The downsides to planning and teaching a double block at Institute? You don't sleep, and you don't get to take days off. When everyone else had TFA (Totally Free Afternoon) Day, I was in a workroom writing two lesson plans. My CMA tried to give me a bedtime at the beginning of Institute, but let's face it: if everyone else is up until 11 PM working on one lesson plan, I'm not going to be in bed by midnight. I worked every day of Institute until the last weekend, when my CMA forced me to take a day off after I cried for about an hour and a half at school. (An IL leader who shall remain anonymous told me that I should drink more beer and do yoga to relax.) Was that day off refreshing? Yes. Was I up until 2 AM on Sunday night/Monday morning to compensate? Yes. (Just for the record, even with that meltdown, I cried less than pretty much everyone else at Institute.)
I'd go through Institute again... but only with a normal workload. But hey, I survived, and I'm more prepared because of it.
We finished Institute about a week ago and moved back to our regions to prepare for the upcoming school year-- ahhhh!
So how did Institute work? I had 90 minutes of lead teaching and an hour of co-teaching every day, which means that over the course of Institute, I led-taught the equivalent of a week and a half in the 'real' teaching world. All of my kids were at grade level or above in math. My kids were awesome, adorable, and brilliant, and I miss them very much, but they probably weren't the best models to learn on. (On the other hand, a challenging class might have thrown me over the edge with the lack of sleep, so it might have worked out for the best.)
My class reached 92% of their growth goal, and the average growth from last year was only 63%! Could it have been higher? Oh yeah, but they went a 48% on the pre-assessment to a 74% on the post-assessment in 18 days. They hit 82% mastery of negative powers (pre-assessment score: 0%), and I was most proud of their 100% mastery of one-step equations involving multiplying and dividing integers. (I *cough* cried *cough* after teaching that objective.) Did I secretly want the highest growth of my school? Yes, of course-- I got into TFA; I am incredibly competitive-- but my kids rocked it, and I don't think anyone has any regrets.
Well, that's not entirely true: I do regret not asking for more help. In terms of seeking out additional resources, I think I did as much as I possibly could have, given my time constraints... I went to 2-3 workshops every week, visited the resource center a few times, and asked CMs and CMAs what had worked or hadn't worked in their rooms. My CMA wrote one AIT plan for me and gave me word problems for quite a few objectives because there was no way I was going to have time to write 60 word problems over the course of a weekend. However, I could have used a lot more help with writing problems for INM, GP, and IP (I had to write my own exit slips). I was allowed to ask other CMs for lesson plans toward the end of Institute, but it just so happened that most of my last objectives were the first objectives that the other CMs had taught. (In other words, the first LPs are uniformly pretty awful, and the only things I could take from them were problems.) (There were three other CMs at my school without partners, BUT someone provided them with the additional LPs. I was not amused when I heard this.)
The benefit to planning and teaching a double block is that I definitely got to hone my skill in writing lesson plans. While the others were working on CFUs, I was working on writing CFUs for particular students. While they were making sure their exit slips were aligned, I was scaffolding my exit slips so I knew to what extent the students had mastered the objective. (The same material that other CMs got at a recent "rigor in mathematics" discussion was material that I got during the third week of Institute. I still have a long way to go in pushing the rigor during instruction and on assessments, but I actually tend to overdo the conceptual material and forget to leave time for students to work on the procedural part. Most CMs privilege procedural knowledge over conceptual. This might be the English major in me coming out.)
The downsides to planning and teaching a double block at Institute? You don't sleep, and you don't get to take days off. When everyone else had TFA (Totally Free Afternoon) Day, I was in a workroom writing two lesson plans. My CMA tried to give me a bedtime at the beginning of Institute, but let's face it: if everyone else is up until 11 PM working on one lesson plan, I'm not going to be in bed by midnight. I worked every day of Institute until the last weekend, when my CMA forced me to take a day off after I cried for about an hour and a half at school. (An IL leader who shall remain anonymous told me that I should drink more beer and do yoga to relax.) Was that day off refreshing? Yes. Was I up until 2 AM on Sunday night/Monday morning to compensate? Yes. (Just for the record, even with that meltdown, I cried less than pretty much everyone else at Institute.)
I'd go through Institute again... but only with a normal workload. But hey, I survived, and I'm more prepared because of it.
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