July Blogging Challenge - Managing the Paper Trail

This week, I was supposed to be in a week-long AP Workshop, but last week, I called the APSI coordinator in order to switch places with a colleague who was on the waiting list. Yesterday afternoon, I found out that one of the other attendees did not show up and I moved off the waiting list and into the class. This morning was a bit hectic as I woke up early to go for my walk, then off to the workshop I went. I had a great day and took 4 pages of notes, but I left my binder in the classroom, so I will have to post my reflections at a later date. I will say that I LOVE how the AP textbooks have changed! I started my stat career teaching out of The Practice of Statistics 1st edition and it is LIGHT YEARS away from the newest 5th edition. I am just shocked and amazed at how much that book has improved over the past 15 years!

Two Goals
One of the things I have been really working on this week is how to manage the paper with 120+ students next year. Here are my goals for the year:

• The person doing the work is the person doing the learning... The kids need to be working in class, not watching me work. That means I need to do more problems while they work on whiteboards, card sorts, gallery walks, etc. They need to be actively engaged at all times.
  
• I need to integrate more writing and spiraled AP review.
  

The first goal is one I've had for a long time, but I'll be honest, I've gotten away from it more over the past few years. I want to make sure that every day has at least one WICOR (Writing, Inquiry, Collaboration, Organization, Reading) element in it. In addition, I want to make sure to hit the different learning styles that we have been working on in #EduRead. When I get around to revising my lesson plan form, I would like to include a spot at the bottom of the day to keep track of the strategies I use. Hopefully if I have to write it down when doing my lesson planning, I will think more about the active engagement.

The second goal is going to be a bit more of a challenge for me. I realized today while at the workshop that I don't ask my students to do AP problems nearly enough. With large classes and several of them, the writing really got away from me. I plan to integrate more groups here, where the kids have to work with their partners to create a "group answer". Then I only have 8 papers per class to read/give feedback instead of 32 per class.

What are your favorite ways to actively engage students in your classroom? How do you manage the paper trail?

July Challenge

I am on a personal challenge to blog every day in July, just to see if I can do it. I would love to have you join me! If you are worried that you've missed a few days, please don't stress.. just jump on in! Maybe a month is too much, that's okay, try it for a week, or every other day, or once a week.. whatever works for you!

Don't forget to visit the other July bloggers and show them some love!
The bloggers (so far)
Robin at Flip! Learn! Share
Bridget at Reflections in the Plane
Teresa at GeometryWiz
Sherrie at Middle School Math Rules!
Brooke at Sined, Sealed, Calculated
John at Functions are Fun
Jedidiah at Math Butler
Pam at the radical rational
Roxy at Rockstar Math Teacher
Paul at TeacherPaulP
Tina at Palmer's Ponderings
Cindy at School Stuff


Add your blog in the comments if you would like to join in! :)
#July2014Challenge