Recent Changes

Am Gov't
Co-teaching has been a great experience for me. I co-teach with Russ Tillmann in Am. Gov't. As Carissa mentioned in her post "World History", being in the same curriculum class for an extended period of time helps immensly. We are in our 2nd year together. Knowledge of the material makes for a positive co-teaching experience in working with the students on curriculum concepts. We have used the What/How/Who Approach in class. Since there is a lot of group work in our class, this approach works well for us when working with diverse learning styles of the students.

World History
Awe--- I was getting emotional until I read the last sentence. Good luck with that! Just kidding. I am very nervous about starting over next year. There is a lot of weird feelings that go with building a relationship with someone you don't really know. I am confident that Brad and I will be a good team. We will just have to have open communication if we feel things are working or not working and go from there. One other important thing I think Joe and I do is split the responsibility of the kids. We have no you take the SE kids and I'll take the reg ed, or vice versa. They truly are "our" kids and I appreciate that. He has emailed, called, even had staffings with special ed kids and I have done the same with reg. ed. I believe this is important for the students to see as well. That we are both just teachers, not SE or Regular. Anyway, I look forward to next year starting fresh, but I will miss the comfort and rapport I have with Joe. ;-(

World History
I totally agree with Carissa that is very important to have a long standing relationship if possible. The first few years it was difficult because Carissa was learning the class material and we were laos trying to define our roles in the classroom. We don't have common planning time so that has made it more difficult but like Carissa said we are very focused in the time we do have together to plan. In terms of dividing and conquering I feel this is very important as we both have a laundry list of things we need to do on a daily basis. I can focus what I'm good at and Carissa can focus on the things she does well. I'm very sad that next year I won't be with Carissa as I'm switching to U.S. History. We talked about her switching with me because we have such a good relationship but we felt that knowing the classroom material was very important. I'm also very confident that she will be able to forge a new positive relationship with Mr. Slinde. We have very similar teaching styles. However, I feel like I'm getting divorced from my "work wife" as my real wife calls her!!!! I'm planning on taking her to the cleaners in divoce court!!!!!!

World History
I teach World History with Joe Vogt. The one advantage Joe and I have is that this is our 7th year of teaching together. Joe and I are past finding a comfort zone, not stepping on toes, equal balance of responsibilities, etc. The challenge we do have is finding a common planning time since we don't have a "scheduled" regular block of time. So, because of this, Joe and I stay focused to the task we need to accomplish. We have built a relationship outside of school having daughters the same age, so when we are at school our conversations and time go to planning for school. We also do a lot of dividing and conquering. We know eachother's strengths and weaknesses and I feel compensate for one another in that area. Again, we are fortunate to have had the time together. That has helped us tremendously.

First Discussion
I have had similar. If you group them it could work, but then you have to know them. Its hard to get to know them in larger classes.

First Discussion
Hi Dave - Based on our limited experience, the number of students is far more influential to the activity than the size of the room. We only planned four stations (two of which were directly supervised) to make smaller groups. Unfortunately, when the kids weren't with me or Blair, the groups were significantly less productive.

First Discussion
Do you think station teaching and numbers is related to numbers of students or evironmental (size of the room)?