Creating a set of classroom expectations for your students is more challenging than it seems at first. When I first started out teaching, I tried to stick to the same rules my own teachers had for me in high school. The thing is, kids today are not the same as they were back then. And there’s a lot of science and cultural understandings that show us that those old school “rules” like no chewing gum and don’t you dare be late are outdated and insensitive to the needs of our students. Yet not setting clear expectations is setting yourself up for a pretty miserable year. Keeping this in mind, crafting…
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Teacher How To: Backward Planning Your ENTIRE School Year
There are endless aspects of teaching that cause me stress and anxiety over the course of the school year. Managing each student’s needs, developing positive relationships with parents, clubs, meetings, grading, duties, extra demands from admin… you know, all those things that pop up during the school year that are mostly beyond my control. I realized that I needed to really focus my energy on the things I CAN control, which is why I started backward planning my entire school year. Why I Backward Plan So Far In Advance What I’ve learned from backward planning is that it’s counterintuitive, but if I have a detailed outlined plan for each quarter…
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10 end of year activities for any classroom
It’s been one crazy year, and I’m exhausted. We’ve finally made it to the end, and my instinct is to play a movie for the last week of class next week. BUT, kids have worked hard, and I don’t want to just tap out. I’m sure many of you are in the same boat, so I made a list of activities that are fun and creative while still being moderately standards- related. Some of these require some prep, but others none at all! I hope this list helps your students ( and you!) relax and make memories as the school year. 1. Write a Thank You Note This activity can…
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How To Prepare for Equitable Remote Learning
On Friday night, my school board voted to go virtual for a week. YIKES! We teachers have only a few days to plan ( and, yes, those days are outside of working hours). Your school may have gone virtual already, and we all may be facing the possibility of off/ on remote this year. I wanted to share how I prepare my units for equitable remote learning, because with a little planning and preparation you can ease a lot of the burden from yourself if and when this happens at your school. This is also important as we are seeing upticks in the number of absent students who are quarantining…
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6 Myths about Rigor: It’s Not What You Think
“Rigor” is one of those education buzzwords that we hear all the time as teachers. We’re all expected to provide rigorous opportunities without a common definition of the term. Often, as I speak with educators and administrators about rigor, I notice a lot of inconsistencies and misconceptions in describing what rigor actually means. I’m here to debunk the myths about rigor and provide a clear definition as a starting point to creating truly rigorous classroom environments. Rigor is, in essence, creating an academically, intellectually, and personally challenging learning environment ( Williamson & Blackburn, 2013). It means not only providing rich, complex tasks that encourage curiosity, risk-taking, and high engagement, but…
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It’s Not a Secret: Grading Homework is Harming Our Students
Colleagues, parents, and students are usually taken aback by the fact that I don’t assign grades for formative tasks like classwork or homework. There are so many reasons that assigning a letter or percentage grade is inequitable, unjust, and a poor practice. If you’re curious about more strategies for equitable grading, I encourage you to check out Grading for Equity, by Joe Feldman. This book started it all for me! Let me tell you why I stopped grading homework and what I do instead! First, I call it homework, but that can mean different things for different people! What I mean by “homework” is any classwork that is designed to…
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It’s Time to Get Rid of Extra Credit
When I first started teaching, I offered all kinds of random extra credit. If students brought me supplies, like tissues. If students saw a movie related to the novel we were studying in class. If students finished their work early, and I had them do random tasks around the classroom. I also had enrichment tasks ready for extra credit too. It took me a long time to realize that my extra credit opportunities were inequitable, and let me to get rid of extra credit. Let me explain why. WHY DO STUDENTS ASK FOR EXTRA CREDIT? What I came to realize, though was that the opportunities I was giving were unfair…
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Stop Penalizing Late Work in the Classroom
Anytime I mention the fact that stopped penalizing late work in my classroom, I can FEEL the judgment coming from other teachers, especially old-school ones. Even if they don’t verbally criticize my policy, their eyes say it all. “How do you expect kids to learn about deadlines?” “The real world doesn’t let you turn things in whenever you want!” “Back in my day….” I get it, I do… after all, I am a product of a school system that penalized late work. But – listen. In the real world, you can almost always get an extension on your taxes You can be 5 minutes late for a meeting Real adult…
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How To: 11 Ways to Support Language Learners in Math
And Science! Our language learners come to our classroom in a multitude of ways and bring with them an equal number of language capabilities. While it might be easy to assume that students don’t need language support in math and science, that could not be further from the truth. In this post, I’ll give you some quick strategies to support language learners in math and science. If you’re curious, in this post I talk about ways to support multilingual and culturally diverse students in our grade books. Even though they’re primarily working with numbers or doing hands- on activities, you’d be surprised how much academic language is involved in a…
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How To: Weekly Lesson Planning in Only 10 Minutes
7 years in, and I still write a lesson plan for every day. Yep, It’s true! It might seem like a lot of work, but it doesn’t have to be! I’ve developed a system for weekly lesson planning. And yes, in only 10 minutes a week! This method comes in handy for a lot of reasons: It holds me accountable to making a strong, objective- aligned class period for students. If an administrator, coach, or colleague asks to see it ( or I’m being observed) I’m golden. If I need to take an unplanned day off ( or a week , hello COVID). I can be more flexible with class…
