Work Day

Today the afternoon was a work day.  And I so needed it.  I spent the last 3 hours or so grading, and I'm still behind.  Ugh.  At least I feel semi-caught up - meaning the stuff I still need to grade is all from this last week.  Nothing older than 4 days to grade.  Yay!

There are a couple of reasons grading is getting to me this year - 1.  I started collecting and grading homework, rather than just checking for completion and marking down a score.  I think it's more valuable for the kids this way - but man, it takes a lot of time!  2.  I don't have any after school work time.  All of my days (M-Th, anyway) got booked up with one thing or another, and so I don't get any planning or grading done between when school ends and when I go home.

But, I'll get through it.  It might mean taking some work home, or maybe just staying 15-30 minutes longer each day, but I'll make it work.  That's what teachers do, right?

On a separate note - this morning was a PD session, and we spent the morning watching and discussing a Webinar by Grant Wiggins on the Common Core.  It was some good stuff.  I got a lot out of the Webinar, and we had some good discussion around it.  It gave me a good format to start thinking about incorporating the Practice Standards into my curriculum, and it was a good reminder to keep making kids think deeper - even in the little things I do during my lesson.

We also did a close read of the Practice Standards, and I kept thinking of Dan's Ladder of Abstraction.  There is a lot in the Practice Standards that asks kids to abstract situations into math symbols.  I like the idea of having ways to help kids build up to being able to do that, and do that well.