Our end of year wrap up is less structured than the rest of our units. Each year there are a different number of days leftover, and we use each of the following lessons and materials a little differently each year. Regardless of how they're used, and in which order, these are the materials we use to wrap up our school year together.
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All year, I grade students' work. It's time for me to accept their evaluation of my teaching skills. I have used the Form to the right to allow students to evaluate my teaching since 2014, getting a total of 337 pieces of student feedback. I read them all carefully, and adjust my curriculum and methodology accordingly for the following year.
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Advice to Next Year's Students
Possibly the most important day of the school year is the first day. Most teachers tell students what to expect of their class. The problem is, teachers are inherently biased about their own class. They can only view it from the perspective of a teacher, and they're the only teacher in the classroom. That's a very limited perspective. I've found that the best way to share what a student should expect from me as a teacher is to ask the students what to expect from me as a teacher.
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Just to get us in the mood for the field trip, we always do a little creative writing activity that I like to call "three-dice descriptions." It's a fun way to practice writing within character restraints, which is important in a day of Twitter, text messages, and emails as the primary forms of communication. Recently, we've used Peardeck-enhanced Slides presentations to do these activities, so some of the functionality will not be visible in the link to the right.
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We always devote a day of ELA to sharing the rules for our Darien Lake field trip. We don't spend the day because there are a lot of rules, we spend a day because what matters most is understanding the history of student behavior, and why the few rules we have exist. In all my years of teaching, we've only had a few kids break any field trip rules, and I think that's because we take a day to make sure we all understand both the letter, and intent of them.
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All year, every year of my career, I have kept a list of absurd rules. They're things that I say out loud as a teacher that no non-teacher would ever believe would need to be said in a classroom filled with thirteen year old kids. Some of them are hilarious because of their absurdity. Some are the perfect embodiment of middle-school developmental psychology, and some capture the true character of the kids who created them. Either way, we spend a day reflecting on the hilarious moments we shared together.
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