My name is Cat Isham and I work at Courthouse Academy. This is my second year at CA and I feel very blessed because I have 5 of the same students that I had last year. (and two new ones) The reason that this is very lucky for me is that I can build on an existing rapport with my students and because of the trust we have in one another, I feel like sometimes I actually get to teach. I think that trust is one of the most important requirements when teaching this particular type of student.
Each student has 8 courses that they are taking and I
teach each of those classes and follow the curriculum map. This enables the student to flow right into the base school curriculum when he returns to his home school. It is problematic for me, in that, that is a heck of a lot of classes to teach and I am by no means an expert in all of them. I plan 3-4 weeks in advance in a big notebook, each subject is on a "page" in calendar form in the notebook. This helps me keep ahead of the game.
I teach, English 10, 11, 12, Humanities, Biology, Environmental Science, World History, World Geography, US/VA History, US/VA Govt. , Health/PE 9-10, Art 1 and 2, Indiv. Dev, Fund. of Marketing, Algebra 1 prt 1, Algebra 1 prt 2, Geometry and Algebra 2.
I guess I am wondering.. am I going to need to be 'highly qualified" in all of these subjects? If so I guess I will be in classes until I am 80 years old.
5 comments:
Wow! How do you keep up!? Do you find most of your lesson plans from online examples or books or what?
I'd love to come do some volunteer hours in your class if that's a possibility. Just let me know. Thanks!
Liz
You are amazing!! I would be drowning trying to learn all those subjects. How do you keep yourself organized? Do you keep a notebook for each kid in your class?
I know where to go when I do start teaching because you have done it all.
Do you ever get lesson plans from general ed teachers teaching the same subject. I teach k-3 and have at least one self-contained student in each grade level. I could never write lesson plans for all of these students on my own. Each week the gen ed teacher who have some of my students send me lesson plans. I then read over what skills they are teaching and their procedure and adapt the plans to meet the needs of my students. Maybe you could ask other techers in the cohort who are teaching the same subjects if they would be willing to share. You may even have some lessons that you could share with them.
D. Knight
Sharing lesson plans is a good idea, I am a little bit isolated in that I am not at a regular school setting and we are our own little academy! I have borrowed some Biology assignments from a friend that teaches at Courtland and some other lessons. Some of my kids though have so many issues that impact them behaviorally that I end up reinventing the lessons. But hey, that is why we are here, right?
Cat Isham
Wow! It seems like your classroom is similar to the one I work in, in that there are several students with different grade levels, subjects, SOL's, etc., but one room. I was curious as to how you structure your time during the day. Do all of the students do the same subjects together, just at different grade levels? Do you stagger the subjects? How do you manage instruction with all the students? Is it self-guided? The whole concept still boggles me.
Thanks!
Misha
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