So I'm finally wrapping up my 2nd year of SpringBoard, which is to say, 2nd NEW year as I taught 7th grade last year and 8th grade this year. I have to say, I always like what I'm teaching, but it is also exhausting. But let me explain why I, personally, feel so exhausted with it. I know that many of the other SpringBoard teachers out there have mixed feelings about it, many of which are negative.
I feel the stress of it because I'm supposed to teach at the same pace as my colleague who also teaches the same grade level. Makes it hard to slow down or speed up to accommodate my own students as we need to be fairly close to each other (same day, same page kind of structure... yikes!)
I also feel the exhaustion of it because it is an official Pre-AP curriculum and we use it school wide. Not all the kiddos ARE Pre-AP, so you can imagine how difficult it is for them.
However, I am happy to say that interim test scores do, in fact, keep going UP!!! So, there you go! Our state tests are in one more month... Fingers crossed!! C'mon 14 year olds, perform for me!! :-)
Kind of a blah blog today, but realized I had been so immersed in about 17 different technology classes and the 3rd quarter crawl that I hadn't updated in months...
I created a PowerPoint to teach the methods of characterization. I always use this and thought it was time to formally create something. I had to go rogue and put SpringBoard on the back burner because, again, not all the students are PRE-AP and didn't necessarily retain the concept the first time they got it. Check it out and see if your kids would benefit from it?? Here's a preview. If it looks interesting, see my TPT store (Teachers Pay Teachers) - link on the side of the blog page.
