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A second year participating in TADL had me looking at my new students considering who might be the best one to track.  As I started to get to know them I saw there were more than a few that would be considered at risk.  Although I have to admit feeling a bit exhausted before we really started, I was also relieved knowing that planning TADL would make the year the best it could be for me and all the students regardless of who I tracked.

The first Science unit I have taught in years, being that I returned to full time, was on the human body systems.  The amount of information seemed overwhelming to me and I worried how we could teach this keeping everyone's focus and understanding.  I felt encouraged after my planning session with Kent and Jeff.  After that Kent and I met for a detailed planning session for the launch and each of the body system sections of the unit.  Each time I was excited and clear about what we were doing and why.  We were able to address all the learning outcomes and balanced some non-fiction text reading skills and experiments with games, songs, videos, models, parodies the kids wrote and even the dissection of a roasted chicken.  We will have to post some of those classes if we can figure out how to attach some of the videos.  We ended with a Jeoprody study game where the kids wrote the questions, I typed them out and Kent set them up on a computer Jeoprody game.  The summative test was comprehensive and many kids aced it, some did very well and a few totally bombed.  Although I was discouraged that anyone failed, looking at it TADL made me consider that the format (which was not conventional) may have confused them so I chose to reassess them using a different format and had much better results.  I am very happy with the success of the unit.

I still feel exhausted but I am passing out with a satisfied grin.