A Farewell to #Oklaed

What a crazy year and a half it has been...

December 2014 I had just finished student teaching, graduated from South Dakota State, and moved 700 miles south to Oklahoma.

I never imagined I would start my career teaching middle schoolers after working in a high school for student teaching. Now, I don't think I could ever go back. There's never a dull moment, so much fun to be had, and kids who are still thrilled to be at school every day. Wherever I wind up, I'd take my kids with me in a heartbeat, no questions asked.

The people I have meet through my time with the Enid district, EdCamps, and everywhere else have been phenomenal.

I've learned about my strengths and weaknesses as a teacher, what not to do in just about every situation, how to build a professional network, and after a few stressful days and sleepless nights that I still made one of the best decisions of my life to enter that classroom.

I just wanted to say thanks to #oklaed. Y'all have been great over the last year and a half. My fiance and I are moving to Minnesota this summer. We've thought long and hard about this decision. Now is the best time for us to move closer to friends and family.

Thanks #oklaed,

Andy

Hoops with Mr. Ott

Skipping EdCampOKC might have actually been a really good decision this week. I had the opportunity to work with our Saturday tutoring group. Being a group of mostly 6th grade boys, I drew a little inspiration from the OKC Thunder.

We have a couple of basketball hoops out on our playground, but no actual court. Armed with sidewalk chalk, tape measures and a basketball we set out to find our free throw percents.

First the kids had to find out how far a regulation free throw line was from the basket (18' 10" for those curious). and measure it out with their tape measures. The catch - the measures only had inches. After doing some conversions the had crafted their free throw line and the accompanying circle

I little hard to see with the chalk but here is our free throw line!

Everyone took 10 shots and had to find the fraction and percent of free throws. Thankfully the chalk and the concrete provided great work space.

The kids worked on four different topics (measurement conversion, circumference, writing percents, and ordering percents/decimals), got authentic results, and had a great time!

New Years Resolutions

Halfway through the year, and I am ready to set a few goals moving forward.

Run a more student centered classroom
   
     During the first part of the year, I tried to run my show. There wasn't a whole lot of student choice in activities, assignments, expectations, and more. This came back to bite me several times with some student defiance and lack of morale/motivation. Starting on Monday, when we get back, we are formulating "social contracts" for classroom conduct. We will have some variety in assignment and practice methods as well.

Move and Do!
   
     We sit and do wayyyyyyy to much pencil and paper work in the room. The kids have to be moving and tackling problems with a more hands on approach. Luckily, I have a few ideas and lessons to incorporate this (should appear on a blog post in the near future!).

Spend more time planning and reflecting
   
    To often I've fallen into the planning trap of "I found an activity, cool!" and just rolling with it. Not spending the time to tweak, time out, and reflect on the activity has left me with questionable results. Lack of reflection has burnt me on successful lessons too. Telling myself "That went well!" and forgetting about it has left me without some important info.

Be more "DR"
 
     DR - Developmentally Responsive - is a term I learned in my middle level theory in college. It's realizing that my 6th graders are young adolescents with unique needs. Most of what I have mentioned above falls into this category, but I could always do more to help them express themselves, work together, and much more