I have been taking Angela Watson's 40 hour teacher workweek course and I love it! This month we are encouraged to consider jobs that students can do to take some pressure off of us - this is a weird idea for high school (for me and perhaps some of you), but I'd sure like to try it!
I have some ideas floating in the back of my head, but I'm not sure I have things quite right yet. I am looking for suggestions in order to really finalize in preparation for the year. Not that I won't change it once we get started, but just that I have a solid starting place.
Background: I will be doing this for 9th grade algebra. My enrollment for each period tends to vary between 12 and 20 students. I have 6 table groups set up and I use certain ones depending on home many students there are in the course. I plan to rearrange student seats approx every 6 weeks, and would like to reassign jobs at the same time as that.
Anyway here are the jobs I'm thinking of:
IT Support (1-2 per class): These students would be the go-to people when other students are having trouble with Delta Math, google classroom, or desmos. If they can't solve it, they will come to me, but hopefully a lot of problems could be resolved this way. They could also help subs run my technology when I am absent!
Clean up Captains (2 per class): These students' job would be to look around the classroom during those last 2 minutes and ensure everything is in its place. That the supply caddies are organizes (with no trash), trash is picked up off the floor, and notebooks/calculators are put away. When necessary, these students would be last out in order to take care of any areas that are not cleaned up thoroughly.
Teacher's Helper (1 per class): This student would be available to run errands for me, pass out papers, help with attendance, and change the date (only the person at the end of the day would do this)
Table Captains (1 per table): These students would help turn in papers, collect work and follow up with absent students, help with putting away supplies, and have a table specific job based on the location of the table group. I'm not sure if this will make sense, but I'm going to share those specific jobs. Table 1 is lights/door, tables 2 and 3 are board cleaners, table 4 would be in charge of the phone, tables 5 and 6 would be in charge of the blinds.
Now, here's my concern. This is jobs for more than half the students, but not all of them. So is that appropriate for high school? Is it likely I will have enough interest? Should I try to pare it down? Ideas for changes/modifications?
Thanks for any feedback here or on twitter (@kathrynfreed)!
-Kathryn
