This week begins a new semester at the high school and with the new semester a new group of students and an opportunity to start at the beginning again.
I am going to change how I teach geometry this semester and have decided to keep a blog about my progress. Our high school is big on tradition, and traditionally the geometry teachers have taught the course through lecture, memorization of definitions, theorems, and postulates to be used in 2-column proofs. The students sitting in my classroom do not see the relevance and often become overwhelmed with the amount of memorization and the pace of the course.
I do not want to spend another semester feeling like a failure as I watch students decide to give up on geometry. This approach (lecture) may work for others, but it is not working for me with my current students.
My hope is as I begin the new semester with a new group of students is to inspire them to enter my classroom each day eager to learn. I will incorporate more group work, and discovery of concepts through the use of technology. I know this will be a difficult change for me as I feel pressure from my professional learning team to keep up and to cover all the curriculum. I hope I can continue to hold to my vision even as things get difficult.
Tuesday is the first day, so tomorrow I need to finish up the details. Structure is going to be important. I will check in and reflect on the day.
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