1.01.2019

Goal Setting and Spreadsheets


I'm feeling really weird that I haven't formally set any goals or resolutions over the last two years. New Year's Day has always been a *secret* favorite holiday of mine. I love beginnings, fresh starts, organizing, listing, etc.

When I was younger I would always write letters to myself and a couple years ago I got really into bullet journaling. In 2016 I accomplished a lot and then it's like I've just been...coasting every since.

But also I feel really happy with myself and my life when before I've always had so many things I wanted to work on.

So of course I had to tweet about it.




I received two helpful responses.





This led to:


Someone also suggested using Illustrative Mathematics so I guess my goal is two new problem solving tasks per month.

The other helpful response was:


That IS who I am. But it feels weird to not have a tangible goal for those daily tweaks.

I do have on tangible goal that I work on every year and that is to use less handouts than the year before. I use handouts for study guides before every test but the rest are basically when I haven't come up with or found a better way to practice. I have a few 'investigations' that I use every year that I like but I'm working on turning handouts into dry erase activities or review games. I label every handout in the footer. 

I can't believe it took me so long to think of this but this year I started tracking handout numbers in a spreadsheet after making several mistakes with my numbering.

And now I just love it so much!


I've been using spreadsheets a lot more this year. I wrote about my planning log back in August. I added this new tab for logging handouts and also the weekly wrap up questions that I ask my students. 

Another new thing I tried this year is using Delta Math. I assign 5 problems from 4 different topics every Monday that is then due the next Monday. I use zero penalty and I give them 10 points a week based on their completion rates. I don't specifically give them time in class to do it but they can work on it when they finish class work early.

Which means....another tab! I started tracking the topics I assign so I can decide when or if it needs to be repeated.


This doesn't really bring me a lot of resolution to the problem of not having resolutions...but I guess I can make a new tab and track the Open Middle or Illustrative Mathematics Problems I choose for the rest of the year.

What do you use spreadsheets for?