Personal Goals

I have been successful at my goal for teaching vocabulary. This goal was to spend 5 minutes per day allowing students to practice or study their vocabulary words for the week. I am still continuing to give the students a bell ringer at the beginning of each class that deals with their vocabulary words. A bell ringer is a paper that the students grab before the bell rings and gives them something quiet to do as I take attendance. It also allows for learning to take place truly from bell to bell. I have seen a big improvement in the students test scores over their vocabulary words as a result of the bell ringer. I have also observed two other teachers who teach vocabulary and learned a few techniques from them. One of the teachers reads a novel with her students and as they read she pulls words that they might not be as familiar with from the text. This helps with vocabulary as well as reading comprehension.

My goal for reading was to read two short stories with my class and compare and contrast the various parts of the story. I also wanted to discuss with a special education colleague the best method to read a short story with the class. I was able to meet with one my special education colleagues a while back and she helped to give me some suggestions on ways to read a short story. I am currently reading a short novel (110 pages) with my class. I designate certain days of the week for how they will read. For example, Monday’s they read in small heterogeneous groups and on Tuesdays they read silently by themselves. I try to vary the way that they read in order to help all students.

My goal for writing was to observe my mentor teacher and one other English teacher while they were instructing students how to write a topic and conclusion sentence. I have observed both of the people I have intended to and have learned some great strategies from both of them. One thing that I do is I give my students a topic sentence and then they form a conclusion sentence based on the topic sentence I gave them. I then reverse this idea and do it the opposite way by giving them a conclusion or a story idea and have them write a topic sentence from it.

Grammar is one subject I have always struggled with so I decided my goal would be geared at improving my personal grammar skills. In order to do this I set up the goal to read the book “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”. The book makes jokes about some of the most common grammatical errors so it keeps the reader interested while allowing the reader to brush up on their skills. The book was somewhat helpful. It reminded me of skills I had forgotten but didn’t really allow me the hands-on practice I would have liked.

I was born in the age of technology so this goal was very easy for me. My goal was to learn how to use a Smartboard and integrate it into my English curriculum. Right after I made this goal I was fortunate enough to get a Smartboard installed in my room. Once the Smartboard was installed I was given the opportunity to go to a Smartboard training in-service. I of course went and have begun implementing the Smartboard into my lessons ever since. The students think its great and reminds of them of playing a video game. The technology helps to hold their attention longer then I ever could.

I do informal and formal assessments everyday so this goal only seemed natural to me. My goal for assessments was to develop a checklist to monitor the progress my students make towards the mastery of a subject. My mentor teacher actually helped me develop a list because this is actually the method that she uses. The checklist is serving two purposes, it allows me to monitor their progress with the English curriculum as well as the progress towards their IEP goals.