New Year Starting

We start the new year with a professional development day on Monday! I'm excited about the new school year. I teach in a 7-12 rural high school and I am teaching a variety of grades this school year. I will have a junior high personal computing/enrichment class for 7th and 8th grade. This will be an interesting change in our schedule. We will have an A/B day with this class and I'll alternate groups with math focused enrichment. I'm curious to see how the students react to the change.

I will also have two classes of 11th grade US History and two classes of junior high social studies. This is really where my excitement and nervousness lies. As I've looked at changing my teaching style to enhance my students learning experience, I've incorporated technology as much as a small school has allowed.

This summer I've discovered interactive notebooks and really love the idea and challenge they will present to my students and myself. At the same time, several of my colleagues have been to workshops and received training in this tool. It has really jumpstarted our group as we've gotten together and realized we've all hit on the same thing. It is really nice to hear the notifications on my phone or ipad and see a friend posting and sharing links they've found for us. I feel like our faculty is getting closer (I didn't think that could happen, we are a pretty tight group already). :)

Pinterest is a wonderful tool we've used and where we continue to find information. As the school year rolls through I will be posting pics and links of our notebooks and sharing our journey. Pinterest has also given my creativity a fling and this is my classroom door thanks to pinning!