Goals for This Year

(Part of @teachthought 30-day Reflective Teaching Blogging Challenge) more info here. I just found out about this 30 day blogging challenge last night and I'm excited to see how it helps me become an even more reflective and effective teacher this month.

Goals are dreams, successes to be reached, and wishes for the changes you want to see.

Reflecting on where I ended last year, and where I hope to take my students this year, I have set these BIG goals.

1) Help my students understand that learning is FUN!
         I want my students to enjoy class, have fun learning, and look forward to coming to school each day. Building a classroom climate where students aren't afraid to share their thinking and try new things is an important first step.

2) Enable my students to use technology to show their learning and connect with others.
        We are thrilled to have the opportunity to be 1:1 with Chromebooks this year in 4th grade. It's my goal to provide plenty of learning opportunities where students can show their learning. We have already started student blogs and many parents are following our class Twitter account. I look forward to helping my students connect with classes around the country and beyond to show them the world is bigger than our four walls.

3) Develop good character and show kindness to those around us.
       Kindness is my overall mission this year. I hope to help students know that it's more important to be kind than to always be right. I wrote about our kindness project in an earlier post.

Is that all? No, I have lots of hopes and dreams for my class. I want them to succeed academically, reach the "SMART" goals that are set for each unit, get along with others, be able to complete collaborative discussions and projects, and take more steps toward independence. But my biggest goals are centered around the things that I want my students to remember long after they have left my class and far beyond recalling what grade they earned on an assignment.

Revisiting goals and setting new ones is an important part of the learning process. Teachers don't stop once a goal is reached, and students shouldn't either. I learned this from the beginning of my career when I taught special education - reaching a goal means setting another one - help students keep climbing the ladder to success.

Therefore, will make my way toward the direction of my goals & dreams in hopes with confidence that I can help my students have the best year ever.