Monday, November 21, 2011

1st Callback

This school year is proving to be quite interesting. Norwood High has relocated to a brand new building equipped with 21st century technology including ENO boards, document cameras, and a variety of other new educational technologies.

I was hoping the transition to more technology would be a perfect time to change up my teaching and allow me to more easily integrate my RET experience into my teaching. However, integrating the RET into my curriculum has proved harder than I thought. My freshman physical science curriculum is jam packed with content to cover before MCAS in June. I've wanted to try some activities but my department chair is unwilling to let me try things with the physical science students as I am 1 of 5 physical science teachers. The department chair wants the physical science classes to be as uniform as possible and will not let me try a new project if all of the other physical science teachers are not on board with it. I find this frustrating because I believe moving towards a project-based learning curriculum would still allow us to cover the required curriculum and provide much needed learning experiences to help the students retain the content. He disagrees and feels my classroom is not the place to have my own "educational research" on the best pedagodgy methods. I feel like I am walking a fine line because I do not have tenure at my school and fear that if I push my limits I will lose my job.

I am doing my best to be a leader in anyway I can but it is difficult when I don't fully have the support of the school's administration.