Update: Why Physics Posts have Paused!

I have not posted in quite a while, and I wanted to give an explanation.  The purpose of beginning this blog was to document how I incorporated standards-based grading into my physics classroom.  While on the surface SBG is simply a different grading practice, it ended up shifting so much of the way I teach because of how deeply I had to examine what I was teaching and why.  As you can see from my posts, I have spent years adjusting and tweaking my process.  For those who don't teach (if anyone who doesn't teach reads this), the replanning process is like cleaning out your closet and reorganizing it over and over and over.  Eventually, there is literally nothing left to organize or perfect, and you could probably eat off of the floor it is so clean.  Once I felt I had really nailed down my content skills, scaffolded my lessons, refined my assessments, and prepped every second of each period down to the minute, I became restless.

I began looking outside the four walls of my classroom for other things to "organize" or "fix".  My last few years at my school were spent with my head up, eyes up, and heart up.  I realized I can do more and serve more.  My students, predominantly seniors, came to me as nearly full adults.  They were cakes who only needed a few more minutes in the oven.  The math errors they were making, their self-images, their world-views were often set.  While adjustments were always possible, they were only ever going to be adjustments.  In the world we are living in now, fostering kind humans who prioritize service and care and possess strong sense of self is more important than ever.  I began to feel I was not in the right place any more.

So, I have made an enormous leap from physics with seniors in high school to math with middle school students.  This is my first year at a small middle school where I am the only math teacher in the building.  I am working a new system of SBG into all of the courses I am teaching.  I am scaffolding and differentiating more than ever.  Whiteboarding is still my favorite thing!  It may work even better with the littles.  I am also using my mom skills just as much as my teaching skills (if not more).  I am busy, exhausted, positively challenged, and looking forward to adjusting, tweaking, and refining my middle school math practice just as I did with physics.   Who knows?  Maybe, when I get my head wrapped around everything I am doing, posts will resume with a math focus!

Note: leaving my school caused many of the images, video links, and more to stop working.  I have since updated everything (I think!).  

Thank you for reading!! :)