{"id":85,"date":"2019-10-15T19:49:34","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T19:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/?p=85"},"modified":"2019-11-19T23:46:08","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T23:46:08","slug":"finding-my-focus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/2019\/10\/15\/finding-my-focus\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding my focus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine this: you go to your first Cohort 21 session and leave buzzing. After a week back in the classroom, you begin to get bogged down by the day-to-day minutia which is teaching. Sound familiar? Me too.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/files\/2019\/10\/Screen-Shot-2019-11-19-at-13.56.19.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft wp-image-129 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/files\/2019\/10\/Screen-Shot-2019-11-19-at-13.56.19-300x190.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"190\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/files\/2019\/10\/Screen-Shot-2019-11-19-at-13.56.19-300x190.png 300w, https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/files\/2019\/10\/Screen-Shot-2019-11-19-at-13.56.19.png 444w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 960px) 75vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a>In a mindful effort to bore ahead of the inevitable undertow of our daily lives as teachers, I\u2019m going to loosely aim for one blog a week. Hopefully, this will give insight into what\u2019s going on in my classroom and the areas that I\u2019m still struggling with as a teacher.<\/p>\n<p>Last week I marked and conferenced for a recent grade 9 assignment. Since starting teaching in 2014, I\u2019ve changed my feedback and marking practices quite a bit. Gone are the days of students submitting hard copies and me providing, rather sloppily I might add, penmanship to their work that lacked general focus. Now, I aim to provide feedback that is more specific and which often takes the form of questions. From there, I conference with students and we discuss their individual strengths and areas of need.<\/p>\n<p>After conducting the conferences last week, I\u2019ve realized that time and logistics are something that I need to work through. I know there\u2019s inherent value in conferencing with students, though I\u2019m wondering how this can be done in a more effective and efficient manner? I\u2019m also hoping that the conferences can, eventually, become more student lead. Having met with the great Brent Hurley (@brentmhurley) regarding this issue, I\u2019ve gained some insight into what I might consider as next steps for myself with regards to conferences.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a good chance that student conferencing will become my focus for this year\u2019s Cohort 21 goal. With that in mind, please share your experiences with conferencing!<\/p>\n<p>Follow @Bjeblack and let me know how you approach feedback and discussion about assessment in your class!<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine this: you go to your first Cohort 21 session and leave buzzing. After a week back in the classroom, you begin to get bogged down by the day-to-day minutia which is teaching. Sound familiar? Me too. In a mindful effort to bore ahead of the inevitable undertow of our daily lives as teachers, I\u2019m &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/2019\/10\/15\/finding-my-focus\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Finding my focus&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":305,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-plan","category-classroom-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85\/revisions\/130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/brandonblack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}