End of the School Year Review : Boom or Bust

courtesy of shutterstock.com

I have to borrow a line from a coup,e of the fantasy sport sites that I follow daily, "was this year boom or bust?"

I plan on doing a mini-series of posts, reflecting on this past year's changes to classroom instruction, curriculum, and extra-curricular activities, to determine exactly how successful this school year was.  While I don't think there is any teacher out there that would admit that the year was a bust, I'm sure there are a couple super pessimistic ones out there who always see doom and gloom.

This year was unlike any other, with a joint art show with a neighboring school district to the birth of my first son, the school year had plenty ups and downs.  Here is a look back...

NEW YEAR, NEW GOALS
This year introduced the first use of a daily goals website in all of my courses.  As any teacher knows, the new state teacher evaluation has plenty of hoops to jump through, and our school  district is no different at introducing them.  At the start of the year, administration made it aware to the staff that learning targets would need to be visible to both students and administrators (mainly admin) everyday.  So I bring to you mrpappasteach.

My goal here was to create an all in one source for students to go to and review daily goals, print missing work, and view upcoming projects, without taking away from the dynamics of the class.  It is safe to say that after nine months of posting, mrpappasteach is still going strong!

Pros
Incredibly easy to update from day to day.  Also uploading dittos/worksheets for absent students to download later is a nice feature as well.

Cons
Well, at least from the students mouth, "it's too hard to find stuff."

I understand, from at least the students thinking, being unfamiliar with any website can prove difficult to find information, however most students were introduced to this website in September,  the excuse of not being familiar is starting to fall on deaf ears.

This summer, the website will go through some cosmetic changes.  The goal with the changes is to keep the substance, but organize some of the clutter so that links and sign-up sheets are readily available next year.  I also plan on spending some time (couple of days to a week) getting all of my classes next year to learn the in's-out's of the website and things not to get lost in.

The daily goal website has proven to be a success by starting off my class with an organized bang, keeping students on task by understanding what they will be responsible for, and measuring that success on a student by student basis.