Importance of content and learning
Expectations for learning and achievement
Student pride in work
In class, I try to differentiate my instruction in many ways to meet the needs of my students. I have lessons and demonstrations in the form of videos, which are on my school YouTube channel. I also do a lot of live demonstrations where I have all of my students gather around different areas of the room and observe me showing them how to use a certain tool/machine and/or accomplish a certain task using a new skill. I like to try and keep it mostly student-centered, where I always ask for volunteers to come up and show the class how to do the skill, rather than just myself. If students are able to see their classmates do it, this gives them a new and different perspective, as well as the confidence that if a peer can do it, so can they! This year, I took on a brand new 8th grade project where my 8th graders all made a set of wind chimes from scratch. I created a whole YouTube video tutorial series on how students could make a set of chime from scratch. This helped me teach a lot of the tiny intricate parts of the project and the videos served as a great resource for students to get caught up if they were out and as a reteaching tool as well!
I have the grading policy and descriptors for how to earn a specific grade posted on Canvas, as well as the policy for Academic Eligibility. This is derived from our teacher handbook and I feel is important to make sure my students know what they need to do, in order to achieve a certain grade.