TeachForAmerica - Institute Day 9-12

Thursday:
preparation for the last day of the week ran the gamut of emotions. At the conclusion of the day in our CMA groups, the outlook for potential completion was not good. The assignments that were expected of us depended firstly on the curriculum objectives chosen as lesson focus for the rest of the summer.

Choosing objectives is a tenuous skill at best, and our Unit Calendar was further complicated by an uneven distribution of academic goals. Some subjects that were pivotal to the summer program, like writing, were only allocated 3 hours of "Target Objectives" that needed to be taught, while others like math, have 900 minutes of Target Objectives while only 490 minutes are available for classroom instruction. This disconnect is simply insurmountable if all the lesson objectives are kept, so I was forced to adapt. Through collaboration of all the 3rd grade corps teachers, a schedule was eventually drawn up, but this was merely the starting point for the nights work.

Objectives form the backbone of lesson planning because each day's instructional growth only serves as true 'academic achievement' if it is directed toward a specific goal. Backward planning from the desired outcome is the only way to insure that lessons are building cohesively, constituting a true body of knowledge, emblematic of an "academic school year". The objectives move verbatim onto the individual day's lesson, focusing that teaching and conveying the information that had been deemed important from the lens of the objective framework.

Daily lesson plans for Monday and Tuesday are due on Friday for the subject concentration of responsibility. Next week I teach writing. This next week also marks the introduction of the Math/Literacy hour into my collaborative's work load. Thus the onus of administering and planning 2 lessons per day that focus on math and literacy skills at the academic of the student begins on Thursday the 29th. The three collaborative members will divide the class into tiers so that each group can have differentiated teaching directly in line with their current ability level.

Time wise, Wednesday and Thursday were simply overwhelming. My normal schedule which included some personal time in the form of athletic activity was thrown out the window due to a daunting list of deliverables. These two work days followed this schedule:
5:45 - 6:53am: Wake, shower, dress, pack lunch, eat, get on bus.
7:00am - 4:00pm: Setup classroom, prep, teach, Curriculum session, Work session
4:00-4:30pm: Ride bus back to Moody, change.
4:30-6:45pm: Find reading books, revise lesson plans, start deliverables, eat dinner
7:00-9:00pm: Attend evening Curriculum session
9:00pm-12:30am: Write rough drafts of lesson plans for next week, finalize tomorrows lesson plans.

I slept 11.5 hours last night.

I am ready for a nap.