The First Days of School

This year will be my first year starting off in the fall with a group of students - all girls in my case. Last school year I began teaching in January, midway through the year when procedures and routines were already ingrained in student's brains, materials were already purchased. I found myself really teaching in survival mode for a long time, but a month or so into I found myself getting more comfortable and most importantly, seeing student growth after a transition from one teacher to another. While I grew during these first six months, I know I have a LONG way to go to become the professional educator that I strive to be.

So, I am SUPER excited to start the year off with a blank slate this year, but also a little anxious knowing how important the first few week are. To ease this process, a teacher coach of mine suggested that I read How to be an Effective Teacher: The First Days of School. While the book is a little outdated in some aspects, it has SO MUCH great advice for beginning the year on the right foot. I finally finished the book and have started the expanding list of back to school projects and procedures for my successful classroom.

While I hope many of you choose to read this book - even if you're not a newbie like me, I decided to zoom in on what I thought was a few of the most important and most applicable details.

So first,

Begin with positive expectations, know your management strategy and make sure it's a good one and know how to design lessons that are aimed at student mastery.

The book is broken up into these three sections, so from this point on I will break up my ideas in these sections as well.

Positive Expectations
SMILE! Greet your students, authentically! Expect great things from them - all students can achieve something great, but every student's achievement might be a little different.

Management
Manage your classroom, not discipline your classroom.
When you manage your classroom well you foster engagement and cooperative and establish a productive environment.

How do you know when your classroom is managed well?
Your students are involved. 
Your students know you expectations.
Your students waste little time.
Your classroom climate is work oriented, relaxed and patient.
Your classroom is predictable and task oriented.

One of the biggest focuses of this chapter was making sure that students get to work immediately, even on the first day of school. Have the first assignment posted, give efficient directions and be consistent with this routine. They also differentiate that this assignment on the first day of school should not address academic points just yet - routines, procedures and getting comfortable in a new space in the focus of the first week or two of school. So keep it light.

This sections goes into great detail about how to teach procedures, rules and other essentials parts of the day.

Teaching for Mastery

Always begin by asking "What should students accomplish and achieve?" - This question should be asked during lesson planning, not the start of the lesson. Effective teachers NEVER ask "what am I going to cover today?" NO NO NO!

Wong & Wong point out an important phrase that my principal often encourages his teachers with "Teach with the end in mind!"

WORK TOWARDS ACHIEVEMENT.

All of the the above really helps you create strong objectives - that your students should be told!

This sections goes on to explain the purpose of tests, how to create tests. The most important insight from this section: Test should match the objectives from your lessons. Use those objectives from your lesson planning when creating assessments.

One of the my favorite topics in this section was Cooperative Learning which the Common Core really pushes towards. I used cooperative learning a lot during the previous year of teaching and this section addressed a few of the issues I often had.

What about students who won't work? Give each student a job! And only have the amount of students in a group as the amount of job. An idea that I came up with while reading this section was to give each student a job description in the form of a necklace made with yarn or a wrist band.

Another important point that Wong & Wong make is to find a way to hold individuals and groups accountable for consistently strong cooperative work. The way you do that is up you, my first thought is some sort of reflective exit ticket for individual and a group discussion with ticket for group reflection.

BEING A PROFESSIONAL EDUCATOR

What stands between a GREAT YEAR and an AWFUL YEAR?? A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E, stay positive and choose mentors who will help build you up, not tear you down.

Wong & Wong describe the profession educator as someone who is...
...always learning and growing
...works cooperatively and learns from others
...invests in their profession


As you think about the upcoming school year keep a few things in mind.
1. Take some risks - educated risks.
2. You know that Teacher of the Year at your school - learn from them! They received that honorable award for a reason.
3. Try a few new things.

Stay positive & work with the end in mind.


To grab your copy of The First Days of School head on over to Amazon.

Until next time,
Mrs. R