Yearly Reflections

(Today’s post is for the letter Y in the A-Z challenge.)

As the end of the school year looms closer, I would highly recommend everyone do a reflection about their year. This is the best way to grow each year and as a teacher, I never stop learning. Each year I learn more about myself, about my students, about the way I teach and also about the way that I shouldn’t teach. Each year as I grow, I need to adjust my way of thinking and my way of teaching. Each year when I learn new strategies, I need to see how I can apply them to my teaching in order to be more successful in the classroom.

1. Here are some questions that I ask myself each year (sometimes halfway through the year too):

2. What are the successful happenings of the year?

3. What made them successful?

4. What things did not work this year and why?

5. What things would I do differently?

6. What things did the students enjoy the most and why?

7. What things did the students not enjoy and why?

8. What new strategies did I learn this year?

9. How did I apply them to my teaching this year?

10. How can I use them next year?

11. What were my strengths this year?

12. What were my weaknesses?

13. How can I improve my teaching skills next year?

14. What teachers do I need to observe who seem more successful with their students than me?

15. What is something I want to learn for next year?

By keeping a journal each year of these answers, I’m actually able to see the growth that I am making. It is also motivating to me when I can see how far that I have come from when I first started keeping this journal.

What questions do you think I should add to this? Do you do something like this? What procedure do you follow to monitor your yearly reflections? Please share.

Image: 'vertical sunset 2'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14279081@N08/7035849465

Recovering from the Holidays

In Is Your Heart Bigger Than Your Hammer? from Tips For New Teachers and Student Teachers, Sam tells us,

“… I would rather be known for the size of my heart, than for the size of my hammer.

If there is any lesson that I could take from this to offer to new teachers, it would be to be easy with the hammer. There will be times when you’ll have to make your point, and follow through with your threats of consequences for poor behavior, but try and take some time to see if there are any underlying reasons why the student is not paying the attention that you require. Could there be something else on the student’s mind, like parents who are in the middle of a divorce, or a recent death in the family, or a mother who is not there?

Be known as the teacher with the big heart, instead of the teacher with the big hammer.”

This reminded me that during the holiday season, my students may be going through things that I could never imagine. I need to be sensitive to a wide range of emotions when they return to the classroom.

Many of my students worry about keeping their electric or water on or getting something to eat.

It is cold where I live and many of them do not even have warm coats.

Others may have family members or even themselves dealing with mental illness.

Some may have parents who lost their jobs and getting Christmas presents is a real strain on their budgets.

Some may even be worried about losing their homes.

Some of my students may be dealing with alcohol/drug abuse or other abuses unimaginable.

Even though this was a joyous holiday season for me, not all of my students are feeling the joy. This may come out as acting out behavior or withdrawn behavior.

I know that I sometimes want to make an impression and come down hard on my students during this chaotic time of being back in school. I want to reel them in before they get too over stimulated but I need to do this with a loving hand rather than with a hammer.

I need to make time to spend some personal time with each student so I can get an idea of what they are feeling and how they are dealing with these feelings.

I think it is important to give students the opportunity to talk about their holiday vacation if they need/want to do so. But I would give them different options in order to do this. Some may want to verbally report about their adventures and others may want to write it privately. Either way will be accepted. I see it as a “debriefing” or “venting” so the students don’t keep these feelings bottled up inside of them so they explode. Sometimes this can make a big difference in a student’s behavior.

Do you notice this in your classroom? If so, how do you handle this?

Posted on the Successful Teaching Blog by loonyhiker (successfulteaching at gmail dot com).

Original image: 'Extreme fatigue'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/46425925@N00/114137112 by: Polo

Silly Questions

I recently received an email from someone saying, “…I am worried how to avoid or minimize stupid questions from students like " why this line is read?” She asked me to share some strategies to avoid this situation.

First of all, I do not discourage students from asking questions. While others may feel the questions are silly (I don’t like to use the word stupid), I know that it takes a lot of courage for my students to ask a question. Sometimes the questions sound silly because the student doesn’t know how to phrase the question to get the point across. It is up to me to help the student make the question clearer so that it can be answered. This involves asking questions of the student to find out specific information that the student doesn’t understand. This inquiry process needs to be done patiently without making the students feel bad for asking for help.

Many times the student may be overwhelmed and can’t remember all the steps that were given. So I suggest the teacher come up with a task analysis and help students go through the steps slowly. I also would put a copy of the steps up for the students to follow. This helps some who are slower and also helps those students who are faster. Having a visual aid plus auditory instructions helps those with different learning styles.

Sometimes students ask questions so that they can feel connected with the teacher. Learning can be scary for some and they want to know that the teacher will be there to support them. By monitoring progress and giving the students encouragement, I will be able to let them know that they are not alone.

It might also help students to pair them up with a partner and when I am asked a question, I can ask them what their partner said. Many times, the student has not asked their partner and this encourages collaboration with others. It also teaches the students to help one another and lowers frustration if I am unavailable for immediate help.

If the questions because repetitive, it is up to me to encourage the student to take some steps independently. I will ask the student to repeat the steps given. Then have them show me what was done at each step. This also helps the student learn problem solving skills. Usually they are able to see what they did wrong on their own which builds confidence for future learning. As they student becomes more confident, the number of questions will get less.

How do you approach this situation? Do you have any other advice that I might have left out? Please share!

Posted on the Successful Teaching Blog by loonyhiker (successfulteaching at gmail dot com).

Original image: '3D Character and Question Mark'
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