Just keep swimming

January can be a hard time for teachers. You arrive at school before the sun comes up, you leave after the sun has gone down and it’s so very cold because no school has ever in the history of schools managed to perfect the art of heating classrooms.

January can also be a really exciting time for teachers. The students (for the most part) are settled into their routines, there is a large chunk of time before the next major holiday and it’s dreary enough that students are not longingly staring out the window wishing they could frolic outside. This means that MAJOR content can be covered, recovered, challenged, debated, explored and investigated. #teacherhappyplace

In all of the exploring, debating and uncovering that is going to go on between January and March, I want to focus in on my action plan and really get good at using peer to peer feedback. I want to try different times (i.e. morning classes vs afternoon classes), different groupings (friends vs pairs based on needs), different projects (essay vs lab report vs presentation) and different styles (do we use the rubric vs more general feedback).

This is my season to attempt and fail, it is my season to learn and grow and it is my season to dive into peer-to-peer feedback and find ways that it can be incorporated to help the students learn resiliency when it comes to accepting and using feedback.