July 18, 2023 • 17 mins
Are you ready to break free from the same old back-to-school routine? In this episode, we'll dive into 5 outdated back-to-school trends that are long overdue for a revamp. Join me as I explore alternative approaches that promote a dynamic and effective learning environment.
It's time to ditch those outdated back-to-school trends and embrace a fresh approach that engages and inspires both educators and students. Let's set the stage for an exceptional school year. Get ready to reimagine your back-to-school experience!
Still figuring out lesson planning? Grab my free Lesson Planning Guide here 👉🏼https://teachersneedteachers.com/lessonplan
I have a new YouTube channel! Join me over there and subscribe!
Got questions, feedback, or want to be on the show? You can email me at kim@teachersneedteachers.com
Connect with me
It's time to ditch those outdated back-to-school trends and embrace a fresh approach that engages and inspires both educators and students. Let's set the stage for an exceptional school year. Get ready to reimagine your back-to-school experience!
Still figuring out lesson planning? Grab my free Lesson Planning Guide here 👉🏼https://teachersneedteachers.com/lessonplan
I have a new YouTube channel! Join me over there and subscribe!
Got questions, feedback, or want to be on the show? You can email me at kim@teachersneedteachers.com
Connect with me
- Subscribe to Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, or Stitcher
- Join my Facebook Group
- Message me through Instagram
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers Podcasts, the podcast for teachers who don't want
to just survive teaching but actually thrive. So I am going back to school
tomorrow, as in the third weekof July tomorrow, and that's because they
work at a year round school.But that's a conversation for Instagram or TikTok.
If you're a newer teacher with yourfirst job lined up, or maybe
(00:20):
you're a veteran teacher who's just kindof burnt out and over it and not
really looking forward to the school year, there's a good chance of the way
that you're planning for back to schoolcould actually hinder rather than help you.
So in this episode, I'm coveringfive typical but outdated back to school activities
that you need to ditch or justnot even start if you want to set
(00:42):
the right tone and kickoff an amazingschool year. So the first outdated activity
that pretty much everyone and their momdoes our icebreaker games. You know,
these are the ones that are likescavenger hunts, find someone whose name begins
with a bee, find someone who'svisited outside the US, things like that,
And especially if you teach secondary there'sprobably at least five or six other
(01:07):
teachers that are doing a very similargame. And I know that you want
to do this to lighten the moon, because you know that students are nervous,
especially in the first couple days ofschool. But fewer things are more
painful than watching your socially awkward studentstry to navigate this. A lot of
times they're just hanging back and they'remortified because maybe they don't know anyone in
(01:30):
the class. Maybe they came fromanother school district or another state so they
don't know anyone in the school atall, and maybe talking to strangers gives
them anxiety, things like that.And so if you've done this before,
I'm sure you've seen this dynamic playout where you have your more gregarious and
outgoing students that just go after itbecause they just want to talk to whomever.
(01:51):
And then you have your really shy, awkward students who just have their
head down, walking in circles orhanging back around a group of students that
are frantically filling out pieces of paper. And for me, I can totally
relate to this. My heart goesout to them, and it's just really
uncomfortable to watch. Also, onlythe truly motivated actually finished that sheet.
(02:13):
After about five maybe seven minutes.A lot of students are over it and
they're just kind of dragging their feet, walking up to someone saying something like
do any of these apply to you? Things like that, So it doesn't
necessarily have the effect in terms ofbreaking the ice that you thought it would.
I really hate doing these activities asan adult as well, you know
(02:36):
what I mean. They make usdo that maybe at conferences or at back
to school when the teachers have toget together for the first time and there
are new teachers, or if theyjust want to get everyone up and talking,
anything that's forced like that. It'sjust really awkward in general for a
lot of people. So what canyou do instead? Activities like breakout rooms
(02:57):
are awesome because there is a senseof purpose and people will naturally work together
in a way that is comfortable withtheir personality. You could also do typical
team building activities, and again,the people who are more likely to participate
will and the ones who are justkind of like awkward and don't want to
jump into the fray, they willhang back. But it also gives you
(03:19):
an opportunity to take a look athow they interact with other people. And
what's great is that you're not forcingthem to do something that they're not comfortable
with. So this could be anythinglike trying to stack cups with rubber bands.
I don't know if you've seen anactivity like that before, or build
something together and then they have tomaybe compete against other teams. The activity
(03:39):
that I personally do is have themsolve a puzzle. It's called the luncher
a murder, and I know that'sa little dark, but students have to
work with their neighbors to try tofigure out what happened and also talk about
the reasoning behind that. And it'sjust something that's not your typical first day
of school activity, but it doesget them talking and for the kids who
(04:00):
are just typically quiet, at leastthey're thinking about something and they're not just
sitting there being afraid that someone's goingto make them talk out loud. The
next overuse and overrated activity is goingover your classroom rules and procedures. Now.
I know this is a little controversialbecause so many beginning teacher programs and
classroom management books tell you that youneed to set the tone from day one
(04:24):
and go over your rules and procedures, but that's not actually going to set
the right kind of tone. Anda lot of times there's just so many
things for students to remember that itcan be overwhelming and make your classroom feel
negative and make you seem negative.I remember one year with a particular principle.
They came in breeding us as usual, but then they started talking about
(04:46):
the things that went wrong the previousyear that they thought that we should fix
for the coming school year. Thatjust really set a negative tone and just
really left a bad taste in ourmouth as a staff, because we were
already talking about bad things that hadhappened before. And so if you set
the tone, we're talking about thingsthat students can't do, or things that
students did that you thought was unacceptablein the past, and how you don't
(05:10):
want that to happen this year.Not only are you telling them about possible
shenanigans it can get up to,then you're also making it seem like you're
assuming that they're going to do badthings. And so even if you have
rules that are worded in a positiveway instead of saying things that they shouldn't
do, it's still best to sprinklethem throughout the week, and it especially
helps to go over a particular ruleor procedure as something is happening. So,
(05:35):
for example, one of the firstrules that you can go over is
how to raise your hand when youwant to talk or answer, and also
what you need to do when yougo to the bathroom, because that's something
that happens fairly quickly. But thensome other procedures, like how to turn
in work or things like that,you can actually go over that as it's
happening. So maybe after your firstassignment that you give to them, then
(05:57):
you can go over how they're goingto turn it in, which bin is
there is if it's a paper assignmentor if they're doing an online assignment,
then you go over how they're goingto turn that in during the first assignment.
But I wouldn't spend your first coupledays of school going over all of
that because they're also not going toremember any of it. If you do
want to set some expectations right offthe bat, then you can discuss the
(06:17):
basic principles of a welcoming classroom that'sa good learning environment, such as respect,
responsibility, and empathy, and thenyou can frame behaviors based on whether
or not it's showing respect, whetheror not it shows a student being responsible
or having empathy for others. Somethingthat I like to do is to have
students model and then discuss if itdoes fall within respect, responsibility, and
(06:43):
empathy. So, for example,I would ask for a volunteer, and
a lot of times you're going toget a volunteer who wants some model a
behavior, and I would whisper intothe student's ear something like I want you
to walk across the room to throwsomething away, but I want you to
be disruptive. And so then thestudent will do that, and the class
will have a discussion about whether ornot that student was showing respect, being
(07:05):
responsible, and having empathy for othersand their learning. And then that makes
it a little more sticky for thestudents in terms of remembering the classroom rules.
But it doesn't feel like a rule. A lot of times when we
frame things as rules, it feelslike something that some students are attempted to
break. Similarly, the third activitythat is definitely overused and overrated is spending
(07:28):
time going over your syllabus. Now, a lot of teachers they just love
their syllabus. They spend a lotof time putting all of their policies,
especially grading policies, and they mightmake it pretty. I know that I
have spent time trying to make mysyllabus look visually appealing in hopes that students
will actually want to read it orhold onto it. But nobody cares.
(07:50):
Nobody cares about your syllabus. Nobody. And when you go over it in
class, it's so boring. It'sso boring to go over a syllabus.
And just imagine again, especially ifyou teach secondary. However, many classes
the kids have, let's say theyhave six classes, there are six teachers,
(08:13):
each of them going over their syllabus. Can you imagine what school feels
like that first week for students inyour school in the beginning of the year,
there are teacher preparation days, andwe have these mandatory trainings and its
trainings like health and safety and mandatedreporter trainings, and they're so boring it.
Dread them every year and they justmake us want to cry because we're
(08:37):
literally bored to tears. You guys, that's you reading your syllabus to your
students. That's how they feel.I mean, think about it. In
the beginning of the year, yourstudents in that time, they don't care.
The parents might read it, theymight or skim it, but they're
not going to commit anything to memory. So, especially when we come back
later on in the school year whena parent is demanding extra time on an
(09:01):
assignment, or a parent is demandinga redo on an assignment and you don't
allow revisions or anything like that,and you bust out the whole it was
on my syllabus, you just needto know that they're probably not reading it,
and yes, it's their fault fornot reading it, but they're probably
also not going to remember it ifthey did. And sometimes we just have
to be flexible the first time becausenobody really cares about it. What's more
(09:26):
effective is just giving them the syllabus, telling them to store it somewhere in
their binder or folder, show itto their parents, just have it as
a reference. But whatever is inyour syllabus, you need to go over
it when it comes up in class. So, for example, when it's
time to turn in that first assignment, that's when you go over your late
policy, or when it's a firstbig assignment that's worth a lot of points,
(09:50):
that's when you go over your policy. For revisions or after the first
test. That's when you go overyour policy for retakes. But going over
your syllabus in the beginning of thethat's just going to set your students off
on the wrong foot. The nextoutdated and overt activity is over and under
planning. I am so guilty ofthis. So in the beginning of the
(10:11):
year, multiple years, I've actuallyunderplanned in terms of enough activities, and
there's been that dreaded ten to fifteenminutes at the end of class when I
don't have anything for the students todo. I've had to pivot by coming
up with an activity or having studentstalk to each other about what they did
over the summer, which isn't alwaysa great activity to do, because there
(10:33):
are students who did nothing and theyfeel kind of shameful that they didn't get
to travel, or they didn't getto visit relatives or do something really cool.
But there's definitely been years when Ijust haven't planned enough for that first
week of school. Maybe the studentsfinished my dreaded scavenger hunt activity early,
or I saw that they were gettingout of hand, so I had to
(10:54):
end it early. Also, Ihave gone over the syllabus before and I
actually hardy through it because the kidslooked absolutely bored. So again that left
me with a bunch of time withnothing planned to do. So the key
to planning for that first week ofschool is to have a balance of activities
that the students are doing together,but also some that they're doing on their
(11:16):
own. So, for example,if you teach math, you can have
them do some kind of puzzle orsolve something together, but then also have
a fun activity, maybe something thatyou found on teachers, pay teachers or
online that involves math that they shouldknow at your grade level, and they
can do that by themselves. Sosome activities that students find really fun,
(11:37):
or things like coloring or gami orjust something that not only are they doing
with other people but also by themselves, and it gives you an opportunity to
see how they work. Now interms of overplanning, in the past,
I've planned too many things for thatfirst month of school and I didn't have
any flexibility or I didn't plan forunknowns. So what I would do is
(11:58):
I would make these files of copiesof different activities that I just knew we
were going to get to. ButI did plan for the fact that maybe
students they died background information to completethat activity, or I didn't plan for
the fact that maybe the school hadsome kind of assembly or something in the
calendar that I didn't bother to lookat, and so then we were out
(12:20):
of time to do an activity,or maybe students took too long on one
activity, so I had to decidewhere we going to finish this project that
you were supposed to present and thenput on the wall and then get behind
on our actual academic material. Orwere we just going to stop where they
were at so that I could stayon pace. So have a plan,
(12:41):
but also have a plan that youcan be flexible with. Have a stopping
point if you plan to have themdo a project, so that they do
have to end it before they're finished, that you can stay on track.
It's going to be okay. Don'ttell students that they're going to present these
if maybe you're going to run outof time to present them. And finally,
the last outdated activity that I've talkedabout several times on this channel is
(13:03):
really focusing too much on classroom decorations. I get it, especially if you're
a new teacher. You just wantyour classroom to look amazing. You want
all of the posters and the calendarand maybe a word wall or all the
reference posters and everything that you wantup there that you've seen maybe on Instagram
or on Pinterest or in other classrooms. You want it all, and you
(13:24):
want it all on there now.But sometimes you're just spending all this time
and energy and especially money on thingsthat aren't actually going to make your classroom
a better learning environment. First ofall, and I've said this many times,
if you're a new teacher, Idon't think that you should be spending
a lot of money decorating your classroomright off the bat. Spending all that
(13:45):
money when you don't really know whatyour students need because you're just starting out,
just really is a mistake. Youalso want to strike a balance between
practicality and esthetics. So sometimes youlike to put things on our walls that
we think students are going to meanbut they don't. Or maybe we want
certain parts of our walls to lookreally pretty, or we don't like it
when a wall looks too blank,and so we just add stuff to fill
(14:07):
in the space. But the thingis is that if you have students with
IEPs which you probably will a lotof times. It can be really distracting
for them, and you'll see themlooking around because they can't focus on you
because you have too many things onyour walls and maybe even hanging from your
ceiling. Also, maybe later onyou decide that you need to put something
(14:28):
on your wall that is going tohelp them, but you don't have space
for it, and there isn't reallya good thing that you can take down
because you've filled everything up. You'relike, oh, it's going to mess
up the theme of this particular corner. So just leaving room for also flexibility
is really going to help as yougo through your year and you get to
know your students, just remember thatif you have too many things on the
(14:50):
walls that are distracting, students won'tknow what the important things are to look
at. So, for example,I used to have all kinds of things
for English that talked about parts ofspeech and genres, and I had a
poster with synonyms for simple words thatkids use. I just had all kinds
of resources, but nobody looked atthem. I asked my students, I
(15:11):
did a poll, and no oneever referred to them. The only poster
that anyone really looked at aside fromthe calendar, was a poster on commas
comma usage. That's what the studentswanted to know about. Maybe for you
and you teach math, than aposter with basic formulas that they need to
memorize. Or for science, maybeyou know the periodic table, things like
(15:35):
that. Think about things that yourstudents would actually use, not what you
hope they would use. Something thatI really like to do is to go
into other teachers classrooms and see whatthey have in their walls to get ideas,
and then I'm going to ask myself, Okay, is this going to
help my students? Do I thinkthat they're actually going to look at it?
If you have a poster with reallysmall writing, very few students are
(15:58):
going to refer to it. Ihave never had a student walk up to
a poster to look at what's onthere when it has really small and right
ever, they might look at itas they're lined up ready to go,
but they just never refer to itand it's just taking up space. So
I know that some of these arecontroversial. I'm not telling you to not
do these things. I'm just askingyou to rethink your approach to it,
(16:19):
especially if you've gotten ideas from otherpeople and you've never taught before, ask
yourself, put yourself in that situationif there was an adult version, a
teacher version of that activity happening withthe staff. Would you enjoy doing that?
Would you enjoy having someone read overslides to you at a teacher meeting,
(16:41):
at a faculty meeting? Would youenjoy someone going over rules of procedures
with you? Maybe not. Areyou someone who would enjoy icebreaker activities or
you dread them because you're more introvertedlike I am. And as much as
you want in your classroom to besomething that you feel comfortable in and that
you're proud of, remember that thisis the learning environment for your students,
so what's best for them. Ifyou're a new teacher, I definitely suggest
(17:06):
going back to episode one twenty sevenbecause that's going to help you figure out
six essential questions that you need toask when you're starting at a new school.
So this is really important because alot of time we don't even know
where to start in terms of findingout information, and we start to school
here with a lot of gaps inour knowledge. So I really suggest that
you guys check out that episode.Thanks for hanging out with me today and
(17:30):
I will see you next time.
Welcome to the Teachers Need Teachers Podcasts, the podcast for teachers who don't want
to just survive teaching but actually thrive. So I am going back to school
tomorrow, as in the third weekof July tomorrow, and that's because they
work at a year round school.But that's a conversation for Instagram or TikTok.
If you're a newer teacher with yourfirst job lined up, or maybe
(00:20):
you're a veteran teacher who's just kindof burnt out and over it and not
really looking forward to the school year, there's a good chance of the way
that you're planning for back to schoolcould actually hinder rather than help you.
So in this episode, I'm coveringfive typical but outdated back to school activities
that you need to ditch or justnot even start if you want to set
(00:42):
the right tone and kickoff an amazingschool year. So the first outdated activity
that pretty much everyone and their momdoes our icebreaker games. You know,
these are the ones that are likescavenger hunts, find someone whose name begins
with a bee, find someone who'svisited outside the US, things like that,
And especially if you teach secondary there'sprobably at least five or six other
(01:07):
teachers that are doing a very similargame. And I know that you want
to do this to lighten the moon, because you know that students are nervous,
especially in the first couple days ofschool. But fewer things are more
painful than watching your socially awkward studentstry to navigate this. A lot of
times they're just hanging back and they'remortified because maybe they don't know anyone in
(01:30):
the class. Maybe they came fromanother school district or another state so they
don't know anyone in the school atall, and maybe talking to strangers gives
them anxiety, things like that.And so if you've done this before,
I'm sure you've seen this dynamic playout where you have your more gregarious and
outgoing students that just go after itbecause they just want to talk to whomever.
(01:51):
And then you have your really shy, awkward students who just have their
head down, walking in circles orhanging back around a group of students that
are frantically filling out pieces of paper. And for me, I can totally
relate to this. My heart goesout to them, and it's just really
uncomfortable to watch. Also, onlythe truly motivated actually finished that sheet.
(02:13):
After about five maybe seven minutes.A lot of students are over it and
they're just kind of dragging their feet, walking up to someone saying something like
do any of these apply to you? Things like that, So it doesn't
necessarily have the effect in terms ofbreaking the ice that you thought it would.
I really hate doing these activities asan adult as well, you know
(02:36):
what I mean. They make usdo that maybe at conferences or at back
to school when the teachers have toget together for the first time and there
are new teachers, or if theyjust want to get everyone up and talking,
anything that's forced like that. It'sjust really awkward in general for a
lot of people. So what canyou do instead? Activities like breakout rooms
(02:57):
are awesome because there is a senseof purpose and people will naturally work together
in a way that is comfortable withtheir personality. You could also do typical
team building activities, and again,the people who are more likely to participate
will and the ones who are justkind of like awkward and don't want to
jump into the fray, they willhang back. But it also gives you
(03:19):
an opportunity to take a look athow they interact with other people. And
what's great is that you're not forcingthem to do something that they're not comfortable
with. So this could be anythinglike trying to stack cups with rubber bands.
I don't know if you've seen anactivity like that before, or build
something together and then they have tomaybe compete against other teams. The activity
(03:39):
that I personally do is have themsolve a puzzle. It's called the luncher
a murder, and I know that'sa little dark, but students have to
work with their neighbors to try tofigure out what happened and also talk about
the reasoning behind that. And it'sjust something that's not your typical first day
of school activity, but it doesget them talking and for the kids who
(04:00):
are just typically quiet, at leastthey're thinking about something and they're not just
sitting there being afraid that someone's goingto make them talk out loud. The
next overuse and overrated activity is goingover your classroom rules and procedures. Now.
I know this is a little controversialbecause so many beginning teacher programs and
classroom management books tell you that youneed to set the tone from day one
(04:24):
and go over your rules and procedures, but that's not actually going to set
the right kind of tone. Anda lot of times there's just so many
things for students to remember that itcan be overwhelming and make your classroom feel
negative and make you seem negative.I remember one year with a particular principle.
They came in breeding us as usual, but then they started talking about
(04:46):
the things that went wrong the previousyear that they thought that we should fix
for the coming school year. Thatjust really set a negative tone and just
really left a bad taste in ourmouth as a staff, because we were
already talking about bad things that hadhappened before. And so if you set
the tone, we're talking about thingsthat students can't do, or things that
students did that you thought was unacceptablein the past, and how you don't
(05:10):
want that to happen this year.Not only are you telling them about possible
shenanigans it can get up to,then you're also making it seem like you're
assuming that they're going to do badthings. And so even if you have
rules that are worded in a positiveway instead of saying things that they shouldn't
do, it's still best to sprinklethem throughout the week, and it especially
helps to go over a particular ruleor procedure as something is happening. So,
(05:35):
for example, one of the firstrules that you can go over is
how to raise your hand when youwant to talk or answer, and also
what you need to do when yougo to the bathroom, because that's something
that happens fairly quickly. But thensome other procedures, like how to turn
in work or things like that,you can actually go over that as it's
happening. So maybe after your firstassignment that you give to them, then
(05:57):
you can go over how they're goingto turn it in, which bin is
there is if it's a paper assignmentor if they're doing an online assignment,
then you go over how they're goingto turn that in during the first assignment.
But I wouldn't spend your first coupledays of school going over all of
that because they're also not going toremember any of it. If you do
want to set some expectations right offthe bat, then you can discuss the
(06:17):
basic principles of a welcoming classroom that'sa good learning environment, such as respect,
responsibility, and empathy, and thenyou can frame behaviors based on whether
or not it's showing respect, whetheror not it shows a student being responsible
or having empathy for others. Somethingthat I like to do is to have
students model and then discuss if itdoes fall within respect, responsibility, and
(06:43):
empathy. So, for example,I would ask for a volunteer, and
a lot of times you're going toget a volunteer who wants some model a
behavior, and I would whisper intothe student's ear something like I want you
to walk across the room to throwsomething away, but I want you to
be disruptive. And so then thestudent will do that, and the class
will have a discussion about whether ornot that student was showing respect, being
(07:05):
responsible, and having empathy for othersand their learning. And then that makes
it a little more sticky for thestudents in terms of remembering the classroom rules.
But it doesn't feel like a rule. A lot of times when we
frame things as rules, it feelslike something that some students are attempted to
break. Similarly, the third activitythat is definitely overused and overrated is spending
(07:28):
time going over your syllabus. Now, a lot of teachers they just love
their syllabus. They spend a lotof time putting all of their policies,
especially grading policies, and they mightmake it pretty. I know that I
have spent time trying to make mysyllabus look visually appealing in hopes that students
will actually want to read it orhold onto it. But nobody cares.
(07:50):
Nobody cares about your syllabus. Nobody. And when you go over it in
class, it's so boring. It'sso boring to go over a syllabus.
And just imagine again, especially ifyou teach secondary. However, many classes
the kids have, let's say theyhave six classes, there are six teachers,
(08:13):
each of them going over their syllabus. Can you imagine what school feels
like that first week for students inyour school in the beginning of the year,
there are teacher preparation days, andwe have these mandatory trainings and its
trainings like health and safety and mandatedreporter trainings, and they're so boring it.
Dread them every year and they justmake us want to cry because we're
(08:37):
literally bored to tears. You guys, that's you reading your syllabus to your
students. That's how they feel.I mean, think about it. In
the beginning of the year, yourstudents in that time, they don't care.
The parents might read it, theymight or skim it, but they're
not going to commit anything to memory. So, especially when we come back
later on in the school year whena parent is demanding extra time on an
(09:01):
assignment, or a parent is demandinga redo on an assignment and you don't
allow revisions or anything like that,and you bust out the whole it was
on my syllabus, you just needto know that they're probably not reading it,
and yes, it's their fault fornot reading it, but they're probably
also not going to remember it ifthey did. And sometimes we just have
to be flexible the first time becausenobody really cares about it. What's more
(09:26):
effective is just giving them the syllabus, telling them to store it somewhere in
their binder or folder, show itto their parents, just have it as
a reference. But whatever is inyour syllabus, you need to go over
it when it comes up in class. So, for example, when it's
time to turn in that first assignment, that's when you go over your late
policy, or when it's a firstbig assignment that's worth a lot of points,
(09:50):
that's when you go over your policy. For revisions or after the first
test. That's when you go overyour policy for retakes. But going over
your syllabus in the beginning of thethat's just going to set your students off
on the wrong foot. The nextoutdated and overt activity is over and under
planning. I am so guilty ofthis. So in the beginning of the
(10:11):
year, multiple years, I've actuallyunderplanned in terms of enough activities, and
there's been that dreaded ten to fifteenminutes at the end of class when I
don't have anything for the students todo. I've had to pivot by coming
up with an activity or having studentstalk to each other about what they did
over the summer, which isn't alwaysa great activity to do, because there
(10:33):
are students who did nothing and theyfeel kind of shameful that they didn't get
to travel, or they didn't getto visit relatives or do something really cool.
But there's definitely been years when Ijust haven't planned enough for that first
week of school. Maybe the studentsfinished my dreaded scavenger hunt activity early,
or I saw that they were gettingout of hand, so I had to
(10:54):
end it early. Also, Ihave gone over the syllabus before and I
actually hardy through it because the kidslooked absolutely bored. So again that left
me with a bunch of time withnothing planned to do. So the key
to planning for that first week ofschool is to have a balance of activities
that the students are doing together,but also some that they're doing on their
(11:16):
own. So, for example,if you teach math, you can have
them do some kind of puzzle orsolve something together, but then also have
a fun activity, maybe something thatyou found on teachers, pay teachers or
online that involves math that they shouldknow at your grade level, and they
can do that by themselves. Sosome activities that students find really fun,
(11:37):
or things like coloring or gami orjust something that not only are they doing
with other people but also by themselves, and it gives you an opportunity to
see how they work. Now interms of overplanning, in the past,
I've planned too many things for thatfirst month of school and I didn't have
any flexibility or I didn't plan forunknowns. So what I would do is
(11:58):
I would make these files of copiesof different activities that I just knew we
were going to get to. ButI did plan for the fact that maybe
students they died background information to completethat activity, or I didn't plan for
the fact that maybe the school hadsome kind of assembly or something in the
calendar that I didn't bother to lookat, and so then we were out
(12:20):
of time to do an activity,or maybe students took too long on one
activity, so I had to decidewhere we going to finish this project that
you were supposed to present and thenput on the wall and then get behind
on our actual academic material. Orwere we just going to stop where they
were at so that I could stayon pace. So have a plan,
(12:41):
but also have a plan that youcan be flexible with. Have a stopping
point if you plan to have themdo a project, so that they do
have to end it before they're finished, that you can stay on track.
It's going to be okay. Don'ttell students that they're going to present these
if maybe you're going to run outof time to present them. And finally,
the last outdated activity that I've talkedabout several times on this channel is
(13:03):
really focusing too much on classroom decorations. I get it, especially if you're
a new teacher. You just wantyour classroom to look amazing. You want
all of the posters and the calendarand maybe a word wall or all the
reference posters and everything that you wantup there that you've seen maybe on Instagram
or on Pinterest or in other classrooms. You want it all, and you
(13:24):
want it all on there now.But sometimes you're just spending all this time
and energy and especially money on thingsthat aren't actually going to make your classroom
a better learning environment. First ofall, and I've said this many times,
if you're a new teacher, Idon't think that you should be spending
a lot of money decorating your classroomright off the bat. Spending all that
(13:45):
money when you don't really know whatyour students need because you're just starting out,
just really is a mistake. Youalso want to strike a balance between
practicality and esthetics. So sometimes youlike to put things on our walls that
we think students are going to meanbut they don't. Or maybe we want
certain parts of our walls to lookreally pretty, or we don't like it
when a wall looks too blank,and so we just add stuff to fill
(14:07):
in the space. But the thingis is that if you have students with
IEPs which you probably will a lotof times. It can be really distracting
for them, and you'll see themlooking around because they can't focus on you
because you have too many things onyour walls and maybe even hanging from your
ceiling. Also, maybe later onyou decide that you need to put something
(14:28):
on your wall that is going tohelp them, but you don't have space
for it, and there isn't reallya good thing that you can take down
because you've filled everything up. You'relike, oh, it's going to mess
up the theme of this particular corner. So just leaving room for also flexibility
is really going to help as yougo through your year and you get to
know your students, just remember thatif you have too many things on the
(14:50):
walls that are distracting, students won'tknow what the important things are to look
at. So, for example,I used to have all kinds of things
for English that talked about parts ofspeech and genres, and I had a
poster with synonyms for simple words thatkids use. I just had all kinds
of resources, but nobody looked atthem. I asked my students, I
(15:11):
did a poll, and no oneever referred to them. The only poster
that anyone really looked at aside fromthe calendar, was a poster on commas
comma usage. That's what the studentswanted to know about. Maybe for you
and you teach math, than aposter with basic formulas that they need to
memorize. Or for science, maybeyou know the periodic table, things like
(15:35):
that. Think about things that yourstudents would actually use, not what you
hope they would use. Something thatI really like to do is to go
into other teachers classrooms and see whatthey have in their walls to get ideas,
and then I'm going to ask myself, Okay, is this going to
help my students? Do I thinkthat they're actually going to look at it?
If you have a poster with reallysmall writing, very few students are
(15:58):
going to refer to it. Ihave never had a student walk up to
a poster to look at what's onthere when it has really small and right
ever, they might look at itas they're lined up ready to go,
but they just never refer to itand it's just taking up space. So
I know that some of these arecontroversial. I'm not telling you to not
do these things. I'm just askingyou to rethink your approach to it,
(16:19):
especially if you've gotten ideas from otherpeople and you've never taught before, ask
yourself, put yourself in that situationif there was an adult version, a
teacher version of that activity happening withthe staff. Would you enjoy doing that?
Would you enjoy having someone read overslides to you at a teacher meeting,
(16:41):
at a faculty meeting? Would youenjoy someone going over rules of procedures
with you? Maybe not. Areyou someone who would enjoy icebreaker activities or
you dread them because you're more introvertedlike I am. And as much as
you want in your classroom to besomething that you feel comfortable in and that
you're proud of, remember that thisis the learning environment for your students,
so what's best for them. Ifyou're a new teacher, I definitely suggest
(17:06):
going back to episode one twenty sevenbecause that's going to help you figure out
six essential questions that you need toask when you're starting at a new school.
So this is really important because alot of time we don't even know
where to start in terms of findingout information, and we start to school
here with a lot of gaps inour knowledge. So I really suggest that
you guys check out that episode.Thanks for hanging out with me today and
(17:30):
I will see you next time.
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