AND WE'RE BACK!!!!!

Well, after a nice, long summer break, we are back in the saddle again! This was an enjoyable summer for me--mainly relaxation, getting some stuff done around the house, and occasional time spent in The Office.

This truly was my guilty pleasure of the summer...but summer is winding down, and inservice has started back up, so The Office will have to wait.

Due to some renovations happening at the middle school, we weren't able to get into our rooms until last Friday (and I was headed up to Door County for my anniversary, so I didn't get in anyway). In the past, I would have been chomping at the bit to get back in my room as soon as August rolled around. However, I've been getting into the mindset of taking things as they come and trying not to stress about things I can't control. So, not being able to get into my classroom was just the way it was and I made peace with that...and it gave me more time to spend in The Office. Monday rolled around, I finished up some stuff around the house in the morning, and then I headed into school to get the classroom set up. My main focus was on getting the room arranged and putting away supplies that had been moved down from my old classroom (just in case you don't remember from my post at the end of the school year, I am moving from 7th/8th-grade science down to 5th-grade science, reading, and writing). It's another change coming with another year, but I'm feeling excited about it and what the year will bring. I'm also excited to once again work with the students who were my last group of 3rd graders. It will be interesting to see how they've changed!

Tuesday was the first official day of inservice, and the middle school staff spent time in the morning building our community by sharing about our summers and then going over some beginning of the year logistics. The afternoon was left for us to work in classrooms :-)

Yesterday morning started out at the high school with the whole staff learning about this year's district UDL focus (time to kick it up a notch) and spending time with my team identifying ways that we can work to meet this next level of UDL in our classrooms. In the afternoon we spent time learning about our incoming 5th graders--I felt helpful in this area having had previous experience with them. Later on I got to meet one of my soon-to-be students who came in for a school visit. He took a tour of the 5th-grade neighborhood, met his teachers, and worked on opening his locker. 

Today was a full-blown day of UDL, starting off with a very engaging keynote from UDL guru Niel Albero from CAST. One of the quotes from the morning was, "Learning should not look like synchronized swimming. It should look like 10-year-olds at a splash park." The rest of the morning provided time to complete a self-assessment for our educator effectiveness plans as well as developing my professional practice goal. This year, my goal is going to be focusing on developing a positive sense of community for the 5th graders coming into middle school. In the afternoon, the middle school staff met with Niel again, and we learned about instructional rounds. This is a method of observing classrooms for the purpose of identifying what sort of things teachers and learners are saying and doing for the purpose of developing expert learners. Once the observations are made, we reflect on them and identify what the next steps to take are in order to help the students become expert learners. This session was especially interesting for me (and a little anxiety-inducing) because a video I made teaching a lesson was used as one of the resources for completing practice instructional rounds. Besides the little bit of anxiety of having my colleagues watch me teach, it was a good experience for me. Plus, the instructional rounds will be put into practice during the school year, so I might as well get used to colleagues observing me! All in all, it was a good few days of inservice. Now we are on a long weekend and back to inservice next Tuesday! I might have to make another trip or two to The Office before Tuesday :-)