Final Reflection II: Professional and Personal Goals

Personal Goal:

I am desperate to get into a doable routine at home to be more organized, to find time to grade thoroughly and get students’ work back efficiently

Result: Routines are the skeleton to the body of life. They hold things up and provide stability to an otherwise loosey-goosey situation! Creating structure has not been easy with all of my new challenges this year, but I must say that I have been successful. I am proud to say that even though my personal life has been busier and more hectic than ever, not only has my professional life not suffered, but it has benefited from my conscious efforts to be more organized. It's taken a great deal of effort and planning to get my school and home life organized in a way that satisfies my needs to be a great mom and a great teacher. I have made better use of my conference periods by avoiding lounges and copy rooms where distractions are abundant. True, I've seen a lot less of my teacher friends this year, but I have been able to do most of my grading during the work day. The up-side to this is that the turn-around for grading and returning assignments has sky-rocketed. I guess taking papers home added to the likelihood of putting off the inevitable. Now that I force myself to spend an hour and half grading every work day, I stay caught up and avoid the stress of fifteen stacks of compositions staring me in the face, begging to be graded.

The flip side to meeting this goal is that when I come home, I can be Mommy. I don't have to worry about planning or grading because I stay caught up. I don't have to spend my work day feeling guilty about not being the best teacher I should be and dread going home because I'm not the best mom I should be, focusing on school when my daughter needs me.

It's taken a lot of discipline. I know that if I let my guard down, it could all come crashing down. That's the thing about setting personal goals. Meeting them is only half the battle. Maintaining personal goals I've already met is the struggle for me. I guess that's why they say that life is about the journey and not the destination. I am proud that I was able to meet this particular goal because if I am a poor teacher and a poor mom, I've lost my identity completely. I take pride in being good at both, and I'm happy to say that I've made great strides.


Professional Goal:

I intend to read articles/research to help me do new things in the classroom for reading comprehension. Getting students to read on a deeper level is a very big professional concern for me.

Result: I have been completely lax about this professional goal outside of all of the wonderful things I've learned, thanks to Mr. Marzano. I have a dream that some day I will make the time to research all of the wonderful ideas that exist in the huge community of teaching. I know that it would make me a better teacher. I don't feel too bad about not seeking out research on my own since I have been able to apply the wonderful ideas Marzano has suggested with much success. I have had the most success with note taking ideas, non-linguistic representations, and providing recognition.

Professional Growth Measurable Activites-

Personal Goal:
I want to have more time for myself and with my husband so that I can be more relaxed with my students and not feel so torn between my personal and professional life. I want to plan activities and stick to them.

Result:
My husband, John, and I have both taken on this goal. Because Janie has been so sick in her young life, I've been a little over-protective about taking her out. John has done all he can to break me of this. Now, we make sure that either Friday or Saturday, we go out together. Sometimes we go out to eat, sometimes to walk in a park, sometimes just to stock up at Sam's Club, but we do it. We're together, hanging out as a family, enjoying each other.

Professional Goal:
I want more of my AP kids to get commended performance on TAKS Professional Growth Assessment and Evaluation:Personal:I will apply and implement researched techniques in the classroom.Professional:I will evaluate Benchmark/Milestone progress of my students.

Result:
Oh, I can't wait to see the scores! We have worked so hard to move from passing to Commended Performance. My students have impressed me so much by their willingness to come to tutoring, to work on their own to develop an endurance and familiarity for different types of literature. I believe with all my heart that their hard work will pay off. The last Benchmark scores made me very hopeful. Scores that would have been commended were up by several percentage points. I'm confident that this professional goal will be met.