This will be my first post for the #MTBoS 2016 Blogging Initiative. I decided to pick the topic "A Day in the Life" so that others can see what it's like to be a high school math teacher.
Thursday January 14, 2016
6:25 a.m.
My husband's alarm goes off and he continues to hit snooze 5 TIMES.
6:55 a.m.
My alarm goes off and my husband FINALLY gets out of bed. Now I have to wait for the bathroom. I try to decide what to wear. I decide on layers because sometimes my room is freezing other times I'm sweating. I take my hair out of my sock bun but it didn't work this time so my hair is all frizzy. My eyes have been red and itchy from allergies all week so no make up today. Hopefully I don't get mistaken for a student today.
7:30 a.m.
My husband leaves for work and I have 15 minutes to play with the dogs before they have to be in their crates all day.
7:50 a.m.
I leave for work. I have found the perfect time to leave- 5 minutes earlier or later and there is a ton of traffic.
I make sure I have my lanyard. I forgot it yesterday and had to turn around to get it.
8:03 a.m.
I arrive at work AND GET THE PARKING SPOT RIGHT BY THE DOOR!
8:05 a.m.
I get to my classroom and turn on my computer. I'm really regretting not picking up at the end of the day yesterday. The custodians have picked up all the papers that were scattered among the desks and placed them in a pile. They all go into the recycling bin.
I immediately get to work creating a review worksheet for my kids to do as I will be out tomorrow for a training. I turn Pandora on and listen to some Christ Stapleton Radio (This is good stuff!)
8:30 a.m.
I go down the hall to ask another Algebra 1 teacher about the plans for tomorrow's lesson. We decide the worksheet I started making is a good review right before our Mini Test we plan to give.
8:45 a.m.
I sit down and eat my breakfast while I finish up my worksheet. I had to pour out my coffee because I put too much milk in it. Microsoft Word decides to not respond and I had only saved half of my work. I'm really hoping that it recovers it.
8:55 a.m.
There's a light knock on my door. I'm hoping it's not someone early for our 9:15 PLC. It turns out to be a student turning his homework in early because he is going on a field trip tomorrow. Man, I love it when kids are responsible on their own.
9:00 a.m. (School time is 2 minutes slower than real time)
The bell rings for 1st period but I don't have a class. This is our PLC planning period and I'm thankful I have 15 minutes left to write my sub plans before it starts in my room.
9:10 a.m.
My team members start showing up. We're talking about our next unit so I need to pull up the curriculum documents.
9:15 a.m.
Still missing 2 members, but 4 of us are there so we go ahead and start. My Promethean Board decided to stop receiving input so it just works as a fancy projector screen for now. This means I have to facilitate PLC from my desk, which makes me feel like a presenter rather than a collaborator. I am the PLC lead so it is my job to come up with the agenda and make sure all items are addressed. This week we are talking about Unit 7 TEKS and creating the test so that we can start planning lessons.
9:20 a.m.
Everyone has now joined our meeting. We have the Instructional Coach, 3 Algebra 1 teachers, Algebra intervention teacher, and Strategic Learning (like math lab) teacher.
9:25 a.m.
We realize that our next unit will be graphing quadratics, finding parts of a parabola, domain/range, and solving quadratics by factoring, quadratic formula, & completing the square. Some of us haven't done completing the square since we took Algebra 2 so we look up a YouTube video on how to teach it with Algebra Tiles.
9:30 a.m.
We look at the calendar and realize that we only have 2.5 weeks to teach all of the topics above. Our days are blocked so that's only 6 days. Also, it is mentioned that in the 4 days between Spring Break and Good Friday we must give a mock EOC and the Tuesday after Good Friday is the real English 1 EOC. That's 3 of our instruction days. Oh yeah. In order to teach quadratic formula the kids need to know a little about radicals. We introduced them a little when teaching exponents, but they had no idea what we were talking about. We are a bit stressed.
9:45 a.m.
We decide that we'll spend a day on each topic. We are currently teaching factoring so we need to make sure our kids really master it this unit so it will be more of a review next unit. It's now time to make our common assessment. We find a couple of tests from Algebra 1 last year and add some questions from an old Algebra 2 test.
10:15 a.m.
We disperse from our PLC meeting with assigned lessons. I have until next Thursday to plan a lesson all on graphing, parts of a parabola, and domain/range.
10:29 a.m.
The bell rings and it is time for PAWS. It is the beginning of the semester, so kids stay with their first period teacher and go through some powerpoints and videos the administration put together about course selections and important topics. On B days I don't have a 1st period, so until next week I get this extra time. I decide to finish tomorrow's sub plans.
11:04 a.m
It's lunch time. No one is ever at the copier during lunch so I go make my copies for Friday's classes. I also heat up my lunch while the copier is going. I take my lunch down to one of the World Geo. teacher's classroom and catch up with her.
11:34 a.m.
The bell rings and I just realized I didn't update my Flipbook (Like SMARTNotebook, but for Promethean Boards) from yesterday. I run down to my room and copy and paste the new warm up from A day to my B day template.
11:39 a.m.
This is the start of my teaching day. It still amazes me that I've been at work for 3.5 hours and still haven't taught something.
They stopped ringing this bell because teachers kept sending kids out to B lunch early. It's hard to get a class settled in without that bell to signal the start of the period. I make the pretend the bell rang and a couple of students yell out like a bell.
This class is especially talkative today. I also have 2 new students that of course haven't learned this material.
We go over the warm-up, take some notes on adding/subtracting polynomials, and the do a walk around station activity.
1:07 p.m.
The bell rings and after all my students file out, I close the door and appreciate the silence as I update the Flipbook once again.
1:12 p.m.
Third period starts. There are only 2 homework papers in the tray so I remind them to get their homework turned in by the end of the announcements.
1:15 p.m.
The announcements start and I have to keep telling one student that he can't talk during the announcements.
1:17 p.m.
Announcements are over and there are now 5 papers turned in. I have them do the math. They realize that 5/17 students is not a good percentage to have completed their homework, especially when they had 15 minutes at the end of last class to start it. I teach the same lesson as 2nd period.
2:41 p.m.
The bell rings, but I hold the students until all the colored pencils are picked up off the floor. They're not happy, but I remind them that we're learning responsibility along with Algebra 1 and that was part of their job.
My 4th period students come in immediately so I don't get a break this time.
2:46 p.m.
4th period. My collaborative class. My biggest class with 25 - half of which are SPED. But I do have a co-teacher. Go through the same lesson. By now I can predict all the questions and misunderstandings and try to address them before they are even asked. This is the 6th time I've taught this lesson in 2 days. This class is very engaged except for that one kid that won't stop talking about all the fun things he has planned for the weekend. Introduced the word Polynomial and a kid said it reminded him of Polynesian Sauce from Chick-fil-a so of course we had to start talking about everyone's favorite Chick-fil-a sauces.
3:15 p.m.
Get a call from the office. My co-teacher is needed next door because that teacher is also a coach and they were hanging banners in the gym. This isn't the first time I've lost my co-teacher in the middle of class.
4:15 p.m.
The day is finally over. Teaching 3 periods in a row is a bit exhausting. It's basically 5 hours straight with little break. I have to move my desks into row because they're taking a test tomorrow. I also have to clean my desk and leave all the stuff for the sub clearly labeled and organized. Did I mention I have a meeting at 4:45 at one of the other high schools on the other side of town?
4:30 p.m.
The intervention teacher comes in and checks in with me. He covered another Algebra 1 class 4th period and supposedly the kids were AWFUL. He will probably end up being my sub tomorrow as we never get enough for our campus. I show him where everything is so he can either help the sub or himself tomorrow.
4:40 p.m.
My meeting starts in 5 minutes and I'm just leaving. It takes 15 minutes without traffic and I'm going to be in the school/afternoon traffic. Hopefully I get there by 5
4:55 p.m.
I seem to be hitting every red light.
5:05 p.m.
I finally make it to the meeting. I have to sit at the front because I'm late. This meeting is for the Professional Development Steering Committee. We're discussing the district PD days for next year.
6 p.m.
The meeting is supposed to be over, but we still have 2 more items to cover on the agenda. Can we just vote on a calendar already? They are essentially the same thing!
6:15 p.m.
Finally get to leave and call my husband. We've cooked all week and ran out of stuff to make sandwiches so we decide to eat Chick-fil-a tonight. Maybe it was the discussion about it in 4th period that put it on my mind.
6:20 p.m.
EVERYONE IS AT CHICK-FIL-A TONIGHT! The drive thru is actually very fast.
6:40 p.m.
I FINALLY make it home. The dogs are happy to see me and my husband takes a break from playing video games to welcome me home.
6:45 p.m.
We eat our dinner and watch 2 episodes of Longmire on Netflix.
7:30 p.m.
I realize I need to write this post so I get my laptop out. It's dead so I let it charge some.
8:30 p.m.
I open my blog and update it a little bit. I then get started on this super long blog post.
9:30 p.m.
I realize I'm not going to school tomorrow so I should look up where my training is.
10:30 p.m.
I finish up my blog, put some peanut butter in the dogs' kongs and freeze them for tomorrow.
10:35 p.m.
It's bed time! (By the way this is about 35 minutes past my normal bedtime, but I don't have to be at training until 9 tomorrow!)
