Teaching History with Mrs. Byars

In my last blog post I made the following statement regarding tech in the classroom " Just because something is better for me as a teacher doesn't mean it is best for my students and this just might be an example of that." After writing those words and hitting "publish" I kept thinking about them and felt the need to address the real issue that led me to write those words.  In my last post, I talked about challenges I was facing with reflective grading. A major challenge this school year has been consistent and equitable access to technology for my students. That week, I had to pull the plug on using technology to submit their reflections because I could not promise my students would have consistent and equal access to the technology required to do that. In that moment, technology was making my life easier but it was making things inequitable for my students. It was clear that I needed to make a change.  But I have a huge problem with this. There are tw...

How are we over a month in the school year? When did September happen? And why does this process seem so much more challenging than it did over the summer? Last year, I became frustrated with the question "how many points do I need to pass?" and I spent a lot of time reading about grading practices. I even tried it this summer and it was so successful that I felt the need to do it this year as well. But right now, I have to be honest, I am feeling a little uneasy. Summer was so successful and now I feel like I am hitting some major roadblocks. I think I have solutions for all of them but I also feel the need to share some of the challenges I am currently facing. The first challenge is access to technology.  Over summer I was lucky to have just enough devices in the classroom, and enough students with phones, that every student could be connected at once. I don't have that this year and while I have tried to make computer labs work and I've tried to embrace ...