#MTBoSBlaugust day 16: My not ready school and office

So this summer our campus was getting work done on the roof, the HVAC was getting replaced and new technology (interactive whiteboards) were getting installed.

Here's some of the technology that
is still waiting to be installed right now.

At least some of the interactive whiteboards
were installed this summer.

So I haven't been able to blog lately because I've been troubleshooting some beginning of the school hiccups with some of my teachers.  What hiccups you say?  The kind of hiccups where you have no way to project something while water is running down your walls.  :D 

Well, there were problems with the work on the roof, and after the rain this weekend some of the rooms and offices now have water damage.

  

On the right is how some of the rooms are currently going under demolition and construction to repair the water damages.  On the left is all the administrators stuff that has been moved to the teachers lounge while their offices are repaired.

The technology isn't installed. Hopefully it will get done before school starts in a week.

And my office has been abandoned and I don't know if I will be finished before the kids come back. Actually I'm pretty sure that it won't be finished...

So that's how were starting the school year. I hope everyone else has a better start to the school year!!

#MTBoSBlaugust Day 11: The right way to start the school year!

Yesterday was a super long day and I started this but literally fell asleep when working on it. It was the first day back to school for everyone and it's always so much fun putting all the teachers from a campus in a room where the AC isn't working right.  At least it wasn't as warm as the rest of the building was!

It was great seeing all the teachers together and getting to know the new teachers even better.  I have to admit that I was late to the start of the meeting because I thought it started 30 minutes earlier, but I wasn't late for the rest of it!

After the campus meeting we got to have a nice LONG lunch, seriously it was an amazingly long and wonderful lunch.  They gave us 2.5 hours!  But it was followed by convocation with all the staff of the district at one location so everyone needed the extra time to get to the location and try to find an easy way out once we all were released.

I have to admit that this was the best start to a convocation that I've ever been to.  Instead of starting with the superintendent on the stage a student that had made it into a video the last two years was on the stage in a fancy suit and tie.  

Kenneth gave us a perfect start to the school year!

His opening line was perfect!  "What?  Who were you expecting?  The superintendent?!"

This kid had so much personality and pizzazz and he's just now starting 6th grade!

It was a great start to the school and I'm hoping we hear more from the students when we meet as a campus and district in the future. I hope everyone else had a great start to the school year!!!

#MTBoSBlaugust Day 10: Planning PD without me

So I finally realized knew of the reasons I've had such have a hard time planning out the PD I'm going to be delivering to my math teachers thus year. It's because I'm not sure when my mom is going to need me and I don't want to have my teachers miss some great professional learning because of my family issues. My mom has been sick for 8 months now and is under hospice care at home and we're not sure how much longer she's going to last.

So knowing that the unknown is ahead I've decided to embrace some various forms of PD. This year instead of all the PD being done in person or with their PLC I'm going to have my teachers do learning walks or walk throughs every few weeks. I want them to first do them with other math teachers and then after the first month or so start walking through classrooms from other content areas. I'm going to give them a form to fill out either on paper or electronically so everyone will still be held accountable but also so they can reflect on what they may have observed or picked up from the classrooms that they want to implement in their own classrooms.

I'm thinking the teachers will enjoy this so they can get a chance to see other teachers when they're in their zone and also because then they can give me even more feedback on what they would like further help with in the classroom.

Here are some of the questions and reflections that I'm planning on using from my APs previous form as well as some of what I've used as a teacher before.
- What did the teacher do build background with students in order to motivate/engage the students?
-What classroom management strategies were in place or observed?
- Describe how the teacher differentiated and scaffolded the instruction for various learners.
- What other SCALE/SIOP strategies did you observe that would be useful in your own classroom?
- What is something you are taking away from your walkthrough and want to implement in your classroom?

Any ideas, thoughts or feedback would be greatly appreciated! If you've participated in something like this before please let me know what worked or didn't work for you. I'm looking forward to really planning these out and letting the teachers make the most of their own PD!

#MTBoSBlaugust day 9 - Reflecting on other Blogs

Before I actually started doing work today I decided to see if I could get some inspiration from other blogs participating in #MTBoSBlaugust and I found these 3 blogs that were new to me and gave me some inspiration and ideas for PD for my math teachers.


Questions that promote thinking by @fractionfanatic
I love how she's taken the 100 questions, whittled them down and kept them so the students are really reflecting on how else they could answer the question, how they know they are right, and really analyzing their process themselves.  I think I'm going to tweak the posters I made for my teachers last year with some sentence starters to include more of these types of questions.  

You can't pick your pollinators  by @mathymeg07

This is perfect and some of what I feel like I need to remember during the school. Yo isn't pick your pollinators and you can't pick all your coworkers.  Sometimes people are great in collaborating and some need more help in learning how to collaborate. 

Japanese Logic Puzzles for the secondary math classroom by @mathequalslove 

I'll be honest, this is one of the posts that made me wish I could run back into the classroom and start trying this with my classroom. I'll also be honest that I haven't really wanted to do any work since I've gone back to work early the last week and I might have found myself doing some of these puzzles on my own when I was searching for something other than work to do. I've found myself trying these puzzles multiple ways and I was wondering all the various ways that students would try some of the problems. I think everyone should try to incorporate this to classrooms if possible. 

#MTBoSBlaugust Day 8 a little late: My biggest inspiration

I didn't get a chance to blog yesterday but I'm going to make up for it today!  

It was a busy day yesterday with helping out with New Teacher Orientation at my school, going to my mom's rent house to make sure the new AC unit got put in and visiting my mom. My mom's health has been declining since December and she's now receiving hospice care at home.  She was diagnosed with many issues last December when I took her to the hospital after seeing how weak she had gotten in just a few weeks.  The biggest issue ended up being a diagnosis of bile duct cancer which she (surprisingly) opted to have surgery on when there were no other options available for treatment.

My mom isn't the type to give up but with this she had her fourth cancer diagnosis and she initially was adamant about not having surgery (she's never recovered from it well).  While I'm glad she's fought as long as she has for her health and to see my brother, me and her grand kids grow up I know she's ready to relax, be at peace and not be in pain anymore.

I'm focusing on her for this post because she really has been the most influential on my career and has been a fantastic mother and a great mentor for my teaching practices at the same time.

My mom got her degree in counseling and ended up getting her PhD in child and adolescent development.  She always said she would have become a psychiatrist if her and my dad hadn't gotten into it so many times when he was trying to help her with her math classes.  (She wasn't the best at math while my dad was a wiz!)  

Growing up I saw my mom impact so many lives as an LPC and as a high school counselor at alternative schools while also teaching college classes.  She has always been someone I could go to and speak to about my personal struggles as well as my struggles in the classroom or with students and she knew exactly what to say.  She also gave me so many tips and tricks for working with difficult students or coworkers and helping students with learning disabilities.  She was also the big reason I finally went to grad school (she told me she was going to go travel with the money she had saved for me for grad school if I didn't start ASAP, LOL).  She has always known how to push me just enough and encouraged my curiosity and desire to further my education and help others in their pursuit for knowledge.  

We were talking last night when I was reading a message to her from an old family friend and we both started tearing up at it.  The conversation went something like this:
Mom: "Haha!! I'm not the only one that gets teary eyed at this!"
Me: "I'm getting teared up because Liz has lost her folks and she is trying to comfort me through this."
Mom: "This is what I'm going to miss the most.  The people that I've grown to know and love.  I'm just sad that I won't be in their lives anymore."
Me: "Mom, you're always going to be in their lives.  You've touched so many people, helped so many people and been a rock for so many for so long that you're always going to be in their lives, even when you aren't physically there you're spirit will be with them.  So don't be sad about that."
Mom: "You're right.  When did you finally grown up and become so mature?"

(Note: I'm about to turn 35 and I'm the baby of the family.  So I didn't have to start maturing and taking care of family stuff until recently.)

So that's it for this post, I promise the rest won't be as sad and sappy!

From before the wedding when she had just zipped up my dress. And that's my baby crib behind us.

#MTBoSBlaugust Day 7: Who wants to help me write this work equation?

I don't know about everyone else but when I find something that makes a job in my house a lot easier I want to turn it inti an equation. Like "Ms L spent 5 hours painting white coats on a bookshelf (including the dry time) with a traditional paint brush. Then she got annoyed with how long it was taking and decided to buy a paint sprayer. In 30 minutes she was able to set up, spray paint the bookshelf, break down and clean the paint sprayer. If she has to wait an hour between each coat, when is it the best for her to use the sprayer instead of the paint brush?"

And yes, that was the real timing of each event.

Also,  I mowed the lawn for the first time time since buying the house. It's been at least 5 weeks and I've learned that there's no equation for figuring out when we should mow the lawn. The answer is always yes, mow the lawn!

So these are some of the real world ways I'm gig to approach the students this year. And I also want to find a way to Pokémon Go in more than just the circles unit.

#MTBoSBlaugust: Day 6 10th Song on Playlist

So jumping to my Workout Playlist (which is the only Playlist on my phone) and I found that Blondies "One Way Or Another" is my 10th song. Talk about a song that has so many memories for me!!!

The first song that I laughed to, really belly  laughed to was this song. It was back in 1981 or 1982 and my mom, brother and I were sitting in the front seat of my mom's car. My brother kept reaching over and tickling my stomach during the "I'm gonna getcha, gonna getcha getcha getcha getcha" parts and I just let out a total barrel laugh.

For the rest of my life I haven't been able to listen to the song without getting a huge smile on my face and even laughing.

It also reminds me of all the times I've pushed to find exactly whag I need for my job, education, classroom and life. I've searched high and low, near and far to get exactly what I needed in my personal and professional life.

- I found the perfect job to start with in an amazingly supportive environment
- I found the perfect next job after that to move me to the high school level with amazing coworkers
- I found the perfect grad school program while working and planning my wedding
- I found the perfect job post grad school with the exact position I dreamed of (I didn't even realize that it was really an opportunity!)

So "one way or another, I'm gonna" get what I want, I'm going to get what I need to be the best educator and teacher I can be!