A new year is underway. Yesterday was the first day of school in Gresham and Gladstone started today. I know the year will bring many challenges to each and every one of us. The number of budget reduction days (9 in Gresham and 11 in Gladstone), the ever increasing challenge of helping students meet grade level standards in math (as well as all the other content areas we are responsible for), and the increased numbers of students in our classes are just a few of the many hurdles we will need to deal with this coming year. But when it comes to the children, I hope this first installment of the blog finds you as eager and excited to get to know your new students as I am. I hope this blog will serve as a re-energizer when circumstances in your classroom prove challenging.
At my school in Gresham, I will be teaching one period of CORE 4th grade math instruction. That will be followed by a half hour of intervention time where we will be flexibly shifting 4th graders based on identified skills they need to work on. For the rest of my time there, I will be collaborating with other grade level classroom teachers on a variety of math and technology projects. I will be continuing my role as a Math Coach in Gladstone on the off hours and days I am not teaching in Gresham. I’m looking forward to all these different roles and hope I’ll be of real assistance to the teams of teachers I’ll be working with.
I’d like to kick off this first blog entry of the school year with a discussion on instructional minutes for math. (more…)