So here’s something new: I’m gonna try writing at a new blog for a while. It’s called Codey McCoderson because good jokes only get better with age. Here’s why:
I’ve spent this last year mostly out of the classroom doing quasi-administratory-things as a Math Interventionist. I’ve managed our online credit recovery program, gathered & analyzed data, and created personal relationships with our intervention students to the point where our school has a pretty robust math credit recovery program for our students who fall behind or transfer students whose credits never made it with them. I’ve also helped bring ST Math to our school (based in a large part on a recommendation from Christopher Danielson) which has been a huge boost to our ELL Math program we’ve developed. I’ve written grants for manipulatives, recruited tutors to participate in the class, and gotten to the point where basically a team of 3 teachers can support our 70 ELL students who are below grade level in both language and math, trying to get them ready for high school credits before they age out.
All of this has made engaging with this blog in the past year really difficult. I don’t have great lessons to post or student misconceptions to puzzle over. I haven’t been making worksheets that artfully scaffold basic understanding to procedural fluency to deep mathematical extensions that I can share (who am I kidding – I barely did that when I was blogging more regularly). The challenges I’ve faced throughout the year aren’t ones where writing about them can help give some clarity to solving them (which is one big way I’ve used this blog in the past) and the things worth celebrating are so steeped in context that it’s hard to share them without writing a dissertation about the demographics of the school I teach in.
But – I’ve also been teaching this AP Computer Science Principles class, which has been really awesome. I’m a big fan of the philosophy behind the class and teaching it has been a lot of fun. I’ve also been promoting the course and pushing for more Computer Science classes at my school – and, apparently I did a pretty good job, because I’m teaching all CS classes next year: Computer Science Discoveries, AP Computer Science Principles, AP Computer Science A, and an Electronics course where I think we just get to play with microcontrollers and robots for a year. I also became a PD facilitator for Code.org (I used most of their curriculum while teaching Principles this last year), so if anyone will be at TeacherCon in Phoenix: I’ll see you there. This is all pretty exciting and, since I’ll be back in the classroom more often next year teaching something pretty new, I suspect I’ll have more to write about.
Anyway, I decided to create a new blog exclusively for my Computer Science adventures: Codey McCoderson. I’m hoping the ‘blank slate’ setting will help re-acclimate myself to the process of writing about my teaching, and I like the idea of preserving this blog as it stands – a time-capsule of sort from my first 5 years of teaching. So, if you’re interested in reading about me trying to teach Computer Science at all sorts of different levels, maybe you’ll enjoy Codey McCoderson.
