Invite a teacher from each grade to be a representative during board meetings to get their opinion and learn about their proposed strategies.
Every teacher has strengths and weaknesses. It may be difficult for some teachers to recognize their own strengths, especially while trying to keep up with curriculum standards. To help them figure out what works in their classroom, have each teacher think about any particular lessons that worked really well, and any tools or techniques that the teacher likes to use, such as incorporating music into a lesson. Avoid new initiatives and stresses during the end of the term, report-writing periods, or while teachers are marking exams.
Having your teachers work together can significantly impact their motivation. More experienced teachers will be recognized for their best teaching strategies. Younger teachers will be given validation that they things that they are trying are actually working. Consider creating professional learning communities within your school to create a more formal structure for collaboration. Keeping your teachers motivated can be a challenge.
Take the time to experiment with some of these tips to find what works best in your school! Creating content that educators care about chalkdotcom. Nanotech Engineering grad UWaterloo. Connect Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment See a personalized demo. Of course, not all new teachers feel this way. Those who are classroom-ready from day one are graduating from teacher preparation programs where instructors give them rigorous assignments and specific practical feedback on how they did.
- Au piège du désir - La rivière des serments (Harlequin Passions) (French Edition).
- State versus Gentry in Early Qing Dynasty China, 1644-1699;
- How Do You Make a Great Teacher? | Innovation | Smithsonian!
- A House in Damascus - Before the Fall.
They get the opportunity to learn their craft from current teachers of proven effectiveness. Good programs have high admission standards, and see to it that their teacher candidates are steeped in the content they will one day be teaching. We need to encourage aspiring teachers to attend programs where not just anyone can become a teacher; where classes are tough and focused on getting teacher candidates to master key skills; and where candidates observe and learn from great classroom teachers. School districts should hire graduates from those schools—and reward all their teachers, experienced and new, who succeed in one of the most difficult and important careers in the world of work.
Kate Walsh is the president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, an organization dedicated to ensuring that all students have effective teachers. New teachers don't need to be saviors—just community workers. The assertion that nearly two-thirds of new teachers report that their training left them underprepared is an exaggeration of the fact that all existing types of teacher preparation need to be improved. Research clearly shows that there is tremendous variation in teacher education program quality.
This being said, I believe that there is one area in particular where both university and non-university programs need to improve. Research has demonstrated that a great deal of distrust exists between teachers and parents that is often exacerbated by race and class differences, and that this distrust undermines student learning. The result has been continued high teacher attrition and a lack of experienced teachers in many communities highly impacted by poverty.
Currently, universities are accused of paying too little attention to practice, and new non-university programs are criticized for too narrowly defining teaching as technique and ignoring theory. This debate has diverted attention from reforms that can make a difference. Given the rampant increase in high-stakes testing and accountability, schools have increasingly forced teachers to adhere to a form of teaching that is grounded on the assumption that the function of schools—and teachers—is simply to raise student test scores.
I left the profession because this kind of teaching did not align with my beliefs about the function of teaching. Many pre-service training programs still work from the assumption that the function of teaching should position teachers as facilitators of student creativity and curiosity. But colleges of education are at a crossroads as never before. Constantly under threat of being replaced by popular alternative certification programs like Teach For America, who reinforce assumptions about the standardized function of schools and teachers, traditional education programs must decide what types of teachers our nation needs.
Only then can we have a conversation about whether prep programs are right or wrong in their practices. Jameson Brewer is a Ph. He is a traditionally certified teacher with a B. I am proud to call myself a middle school teacher. I entered the profession through an alternative licensure pathway and started teaching just before No Child Left Behind went into effect. Don't forget to do something nice for the cafeteria folks a couple times a year. Appoint a teacher to be "acting principal" when you are out of the building. This usually convinces them that they love being a teacher!
Make sure that everyone is on a committee that meets regularly and that they have real tasks and opportunities for real input in school-level decision making. Be sure to publicly commend staff members who go above and beyond outside of the school day -- by volunteering to be part of district-wide or state-level committees, for example. Approach the parent-school association, local business partners, Jaycees, or other groups to gather materials and labor to accomplish various fix-it projects that the Board of Education is unable to tackle.
Organize a social committee to plan events just for fun.
One such event might be a monthly "Treat-Your-Friends Tuesday. The principal will cover the class when you take that time off.
10 Tips for Keeping Your Teachers Motivated | Chalk
Make a spot on your weekly memo for a special thank-you or congratulations to individuals or the entire team. Thank you for organizing Red Ribbon Week! Thanks for the extra effort on parent teacher conferences! Thank you to the "bulletin board fairy" who decorated the board in the workroom! Back-to-School Survivor Day Offers Lessons About Quality Learning Educator recounts how her school's administrators used the Survivor television show as a theme to strengthen teams, build camaraderie, present challenges -- and teach a few lessons about how to create a quality classroom environment for students.
Survivor activity ideas and teacher reactions! More than 1, FREE lessons. PD content to get you through the day. Download without a subscription. Receive timely lesson ideas and PD tips. Receive timely lesson ideas and PD tips Thank you for subscribing to the Educationworld. Classroom Problem Solver Dr. Faculty Retreats Set the Tone. Trending Icebreakers Volume 5: It's time to make a fresh start.
You've done some summer reading on classroom management, and you're eager to try out some new ideas. You've learned from past mistakes, and you look forward this year to avoiding those mistakes. Most fun of all, the opening days of school are an opportunity to get to know a whole new group of kids!
What will you do during those first few days of school? What activities might you do to help you get to know your new students? What activities will help students get to know you and one another? For the last three years, Education World has presented a new group of getting-to-know-you ideas -- or icebreakers -- for those first days of school.
Here are 19 ideas -- ideas tried and tested by Education World readers -- to help develop classroom camaraderie during the opening days of school. Opening-Day Letter Still looking for more ideas? Don't forget our archive of more than icebreaker activities. Write a letter to your students. In that letter, introduce yourself to students. Tell them about your hopes for the new school year and some of the fun things you'll be doing in class. In addition, tell students a few personal things about yourself; for example, your likes and dislikes, what you did over the summer, and your hobbies.
Ask questions throughout the letter. You might ask what students like most about school, what they did during the summer, what their goals for the new school year are, or what they are really good at. In your letter, be sure to model the correct parts of a friendly letter!
On the first day of school, display your letter on an overhead projector.
6 Ways to Motivate Teachers: Be the Hope
Then pass each student a sheet of nice stationery. Have the students write return letters to you. In this letter, they will need to answer some of your questions and tell you about themselves.
This is a great way to get to know each other in a personal way! Mail the letter to students before school starts, and enclose a sheet of stationery for kids to write you back. Each piece should have a matching piece of the same length. There should be enough pieces so that each student will have one.
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- Dreams, Visions, and Heroes.
- 10 Tips for Keeping Your Teachers Motivated;
- Critical Space (Atticus Kodiak).
Then give each student one piece of string, and challenge each student to find the other student who has a string of the same length. After students find their matches, they can take turns introducing themselves to one another. You can provide a list of questions to help students "break the ice," or students can come up with their own.
You might extend the activity by having each student introduce his or her partner to the class. Give each student a slip of paper with the name of an animal on it. Then give students instructions for the activity: They must locate the other members of their animal group by imitating that animal's sound only. No talking is allowed. The students might hesitate initially, but that hesitation soon gives way to a cacophony of sound as the kids moo, snort, and giggle their way into groups. The end result is that students have found their way into their homerooms or advisory groups for the school year, and the initial barriers to good teamwork have already been broken.
Hold a large ball of yarn. Start by telling the students something about yourself. Then roll the ball of yarn to a student without letting go of the end of the yarn. The student who gets the ball of yarn tells his or her name and something good about himself or herself. Then the student rolls the yarn to somebody else, holding on to the strand of yarn.
Soon students have created a giant web. After everyone has spoken, you and all the students stand up, continuing to hold the yarn. Start a discussion of how this activity relates to the idea of teamwork -- for example, the students need to work together and not let others down. To drive home your point about teamwork, have one student drop his or her strand of yarn; that will demonstrate to students how the web weakens if the class isn't working together.
Questions might include the following: What is your name? Where were you born? How many brothers or sisters do you have? What are their names? Do you have any pets? Tell students to write those questions on a piece of paper and to add to that paper five more questions they could ask someone they don't know. Pair students, and have each student interview his or her partner and record the responses. Then have each student use the interview responses to write a "dictionary definition" of his or her partner to include in a Student Dictionary. You might model this activity by creating a sample dictionary definition about yourself.
Born in Riverside, California. No brothers or sisters. Have students bring in small pictures of themselves to paste next to their entries in the Student Dictionary. Bind the definitions into a book, and display it at back-to-school night. Ask each student to write a brief description of his or her physical characteristics on one index card and his or her name on the other. Physical characteristics usually do not include clothing, but if you teach the primary grades, you might allow students to include clothing in their descriptions.
Put all the physical characteristic index cards in a shoe box, mix them up, and distribute one card to each student, making sure that no student gets his or her own card. Give students ten minutes to search for the person who fits the description on the card they hold. There is no talking during this activity, but students can walk around the room. At the end of the activity, tell students to write on the card the name of the student who best matches the description.
Then have students share their results. How many students guessed correctly? Patricia McHugh, John W. Set up a circle of chairs with one less chair than the number of students in the class. Play music as the students circle around the chairs. When the music stops, the students must sit in a seat. Unlike the traditional game, the person without a seat is not out. Instead, someone must make room for that person. Then remove another seat and start the music again. The kids end up on one another's laps and sharing chairs! You can play this game outside, and you can end it whenever you wish.
Afterward, stress the teamwork and cooperation the game took, and how students needed to accept one another to be successful. Reinforce that idea by repeating this game throughout the year. Danielle Weston, Willard School, Sanford, Maine Hands-On Activity Have students begin this activity by listing at least 25 words that describe them and the things they like.
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No sentences allowed, just words! Then ask each student to use a dark pen to trace the pattern of his or her hand with the fingers spread apart. Provide another sheet of paper that the student can place on top of the tracing. Because the tracing was done with a dark pen, the outline should be visible on the sheet below.