First Day of School!

Today was the first day of school and it went amazing! I did not feel nervous at all and it felt very natural to be up in front of my students. I owe that to CoT! I dove right in and took my position as lead teacher right off the bat for all 5 sections of Intro to 3D. Instead of going over the syllabus the first day, I had students work on a pre-assessment activity where they were provided a bucket full of random 2D materials (paper, popsicle sticks, paperclips, playing cards, etc) and asked them to create a 3D sphere. 1st period I recognized that some students were confused about shape vs. form and had a difficult time getting started, so for the next class, I created a little slide in the powerpoint the demonstrated the difference between shape and form and then showed examples of successful spheres from 1st period. I didn't want to show examples because I wanted to see what ideas and methods of construction the students came up with on their own, but it did help the following classes get started. While they were busy working on the pre-assessment activity, I rolled my chair from table to table to meet the kids, figure out their names, and talk to them about their summers. I am SO glad I did this, because it allowed me to make connections with each student right from the get go and honestly every interaction was successful and students were very responsive. I made sure to make a connection to each of their summer activities in some way and I think that'll make them feel more comfortable around me. Ms. O was helpful and scripted while she observed. This was helpful to look at after 1st period during prep so I could reflect and be even better for the following classes!

I did run into a situation where one student understood little english so I had to improvise. After introducing the pre-assessment activity, I went to her and used an example from 1st period to show what I wanted her to do. I used lots of hand motions and only used key words or ideas. She essentially asked if she could copy the example and I nodded yes. I think I will need to provide lots of visual examples for her. She was able to complete the pre-assessment successfully though!

AP 2D and Drawing is held at the same time as IB, which is an impossible task because they are such different programs, so in past years, Ms. O has felt like IB has gotten the short end of the stick because there's usually only 4 of them compared to 20 AP students, so AP sucks up most her time. I offered to help lead AP while she took IB aside to walk them through their syllabus and 1st assignment. Co-teaching with her during this period is going to be a great experience!

Overall, I had a fantastic first day!