coordination

my district is in deep doo-doo, right? low achievement scores, high dropout rates, high teacher attrition rates, lots of discipline problems, etc etc.
in response to this, they constantly give teachers new strategies we're supposed to use (via mandates to the principals). often they are good strategies. often we don't get enough time to try them before we go on to the next thing.

this time, it's a combination of two things:
1) student engagement via cooperative learning
2) daily achievable learning targets (objectives)

these are both things i believe in deeply. in fact, i really feel like they are important instructional strategies. i really hope that my district lets us stay focused on these for the whole rest of the semester instead of changing tack midway through. as i said, i agree with the district folks who say that kids need to know where they're supposed to be going (metaphorically) to be successful, and that in order to get there, they need to be engaged in their learning and held accountable. okay, awesome.

but wow. i am planning a my lessons for the week, in the context of a unit i'm doing on nutrition/fast food/junk food/persuasive writing/reading informational materials. (this is a combination of standards i'm required to teach and content that is interesting to my students.) so i'm working on learning targets that reflect the standards that i am teaching, put into a logical order and leading kids to higher-order thinking, all while using some new cooperative learning strategies that i've learned recently. each of those things is doable. all of them together is very challenging. and that's part of why i hate it when people imply that teachers aren't very smart. you don't have to think very much to be a teacher, but you have to think really critically and creatively to be a good teacher.