Week 3 Reflection: Finding Some Structure

This was the first week I really felt comfortable with being an administrator and the regular duties that go along with it. The first few weeks I was trying to get to know the staff and learn my way around the building and the master schedule. Now that I have a pretty good grasp on all of that, I feel like I can really start helping the STEM teachers more. I've gotten into the routine of writing out a rough schedule for each day that outlines any meetings and my observation schedule for the day. I have found that 1 or 2 observations a day works great for me, giving me enough time to prep for the observation and have the post observation conference that same day too. One of my biggest complaints about my experience with the observation process as a teacher was that it usually took days or weeks to have a discussion about the lesson. I've had some really great conversations about specific lessons and teaching in general in the past 2 weeks and look forward to continuing those conversations over the course of the year.

I've made sure to schedule at least 2 periods per day as "office" periods. This allows me to catch up on e-mails, phone calls, and other paperwork that needs to be done. I prefer to get those things done outside of class time, but things pop up during the day that need to be addressed. This helps me relax when I get an e-mail or a message that needs attention, knowing that I have time allotted for dealing with it. The couple of times I tried to plan something for every period, I felt exhausted at the end of the day and still had plenty to do when I got home. I make sure to rotate what periods I "office" so I can see different classes everyday.

The Calculus AB teacher is flipping her class using videos I made for my classes when I taught. Since we use the same book and have a similar approach to explaining the concepts, she decided to try my videos and see how it worked. The videos are of me teaching lessons to an empty room with a camera in it. As I was talking to the AP Chemistry teacher last week, I saw a group of students in the back of the room looking at us and laughing. Finally, one of them asked if I was the guy from the calculus videos. I told her yes and about half the class erupted in laughter and comments. I am not sure if it was positive or negative, but it certainly got their attention. The teacher and I got a good laugh out of this and I will definitely go into the calculus classes a couple of times next week to harass those students.

This leads me into my favorite part of last week and the thing I'm looking forward to the most right now. I was trying to help the teacher figure out a problem she was having with EDpuzzle, and I came across a video I posted at the end of last year for a student who was absent. The student knew she was going to be out and didn't want to miss anything, so I told her I would record class and post it for her to watch. I didn't realize until I watched the video last week that that class was actually the very last lesson I ever taught as a classroom teacher. I became very nostalgic and immediately wanted to start teaching again. Instead of quitting, I decided to go into the Calculus BC class the next day and try to help out with a "quiet" class. I jumped in and out of the lesson, calling on kids and explaining some concepts too. It was awesome. After class, I talked to the teacher to make sure she didn't take offense to my actions. As I suspected from a strong, veteran teacher, she was totally fine with it and appreciated the alternate points of view. I told her I would like to do that more often and she was all about it, so I'm super pumped up to get back in there this week and harass some kids...it's what I do best.

I know these reflections are kind of all over the place. I also don't know if anyone actually reads them, so if you do, thanks and I'm sorry! I'm more looking to document my journey for a look back at the end of the year to see how much I changed.

Bobby