Days 2 & 3
1. Quick write: What are your first impressions of 7th-grade? About this class?
2. 10 question quiz on the syllabus and policies and procedures. This is graded in-class so students understand how I want them to self-grade.
3. Next we fill out our Assessment Charts. This is a form I have my students fill out all year. It is a way for them to get a visual of how they are doing on assessments and set goals for future assessments.
4. I show the students my website and explain how they and their families will be able to check grades throughout the semester.
5. Students are given a piece of cardstock on which to write their name and decorate. On the back they write their birthday. I use these throughout the year to celebrate birthdays.
6. Students work on a scavenger hunt to become acclimated to their textbook.
Second hour–students finish the project from yesterday and then create a collage showing all of the items they purchased.
Day 3–students take the inventory test to ensure proper placement in their math class as well as inform me of their skills.
By Day 4, we are into the curriculum!
July 1, 2009 at 10:25 pm
I love the assessment charts. I may do something like that this year. I teach sophomores so it would be a tool for them to self-assess and I’d train them and work with them on it during the first six week’s period. Then it might be a part of my unit plans.
Love how much you share. It really helps me think and plan.
Best of luck.
July 2, 2009 at 12:06 am
David, I’m glad to help. When you tweak the assessment chart, I’d love to see what changes you make to it. I’m not 100% pleased with it, but haven’t really seen how to make it better yet. I decided I was really going to work on sharing more this year, so we’ll see how effective I am.
July 2, 2009 at 2:10 pm
What folks on my campus want to do (finding the time and organizing it is difficult) is to have a chart where each question on the test is labeled by learning objective and the student can track their progress that way. I like yours at first because it is simple and not to that level. I don’t think I’ll have the time to design everything down to objective for next year.