First the changes. It looks like I will not be teaching Regents Living Environment at my current school next year. That can be interpreted in a couple of different ways, and I will leave it ambiguous for the moment. That also leaves open the question of whether this blog becomes obsolete next year - or at least the title.
The second change is that I am looking for an alternative hosting set-up for my website. I currently use Hostway, which has been excellent - I can't remember a single moment of down time - but I can't afford it any more, and I'm looking for a number of ways to cut back on expenses. I started with hostway back when I was setting up the website as a staff developer for District Six in NYC, and the district picked up the tab. I'm looking for reliable cheap alternative hosting, but I may have to settle for cheap. I'm looking at Globat, which has some special offers from gotapex. All this means that there may be some down time as I make the switch.
End of year issues. I'm in full regents prep mode as panic sets in. Of course students are getting less & less focused on school because that's just what happens in middle school - Most students have no more real exams left. The 8th grade science & social studies tests are jokes in the sense that there are no consequences for students or schools if the students don't perform well, so there's little pressure on anyone to take them seriously. So here I am asking them for the first time in their lives to be serious all the way to June 22nd when the Regents exam is scheduled. They know that they will be in school with me reviewing for an exam even when most of their classmates are finished ("graduation" is June 16th).
My colleague (who teaches one regents class) and I will begin extra tutoring sessions next week for students in danger of failing the exam. I'm giving my final practice exam this week to gauge who needs the most help. I'm hoping that only 15-20 kids (out of 60) will require extra help. As I've stated before, because we are an 8th grade program, I want everyone to get 75 or better on the exam so there won't be any hassles with their high schools because they barely passed. I know that all students at 75 or better is probably unrealistic at this point, but it's still a goal.
Still left to cover. Student exit projects are due next Friday. I've been helping them along with the different parts of the written report, and will post a few when they are done. I will also post some of my strategies for getting the written part completed. In short, they will hand in different elements of the report each day between now & next Friday (I don't have any revolutionary fool-proof methods here). This will allow me to give them feedback pretty quickly for editing. By Friday they will have to fix any problems and put it all together.
I still have some ecology concepts to cover. Most of the basics were taught last year, so I don't have to do a full ecology unit. Just review and elaborate. I will need to do a lab on plants along with photosynthesis/respiration.
I need to review evolution and particulary human evolution. That will have to be a quick powerpoint presentation, unfortunately. Ditto for biotechnology.
Finally, I need to do 3 more required labs. It sounds like a lot, but I do get 8 periods per week (minus some days for end-of-year nonsense). Also, most of the basic ideas in the required labs have already been covered to an extent in other labs. If I teach LE again next year, I will know much more about time management than I did this year. I spent too much time on some topics (relative to their importance in the exam) and too little on others.
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