Emily Waddill Course 3 Blog 2

I have been working on giving students more choice and freedom with how they are learning the content. I have been making learning plans that correlate with the topic for that day. Some of the learning plans have included games, task cards, puzzles, mazes and technology. The students have really enjoyed playing the games and having some other options besides just worksheets. They are still responsible for completing a certain number of problems until they can get a reward like playing a game. This has been working very well for me and I'm planning on continuing this next year and working up to week long plans.

I have also been working on classroom management specifically with my fourth period. That period is right after lunch and are with me for an hour and a half. They are a particularly rambunctious group and I've had a hard time finding something that will work with this class to get them paying attention. I met with Dawn this week and we discussed how to incorporate earning points for individual groups as well as points for the whole class. I implemented this yesterday and it was a night and day difference from one day to the next. They were quiet, respectful and completed their work to earn points for their group. I can't believe how much different the class was and I'm hoping that it will continue for the rest of the year. I'm going to be updating one of my bulletin boards to use as a visual point tracker to give students motivation to earn more points. I'm very excited that everything seems to be going well and I appreciate the help that I've been given to accomplish this.