First Days - Game Changer

I know many amazing teachers who get nervous on the first day of school no matter how long they've been in the classroom.  I get nervous three or four days later when students start to get comfortable.  Even then, I heavily rely on what I said the first few days of school to keep us moving, which brings me to my golden rule.

GOLDEN RULE:  Whatever you say, do it.   

So those first few days are key, because we're in front of the class making a big stink about what we want.  Whatever stink we make, we need to make sure we follow through on every part of it.  Fairness and trust are so important to teenagers.  I keep it simple so that on days three or four, when students start to settle in and test boundaries, I can continue to build their trust in my expertise and guidance throughout the school year.

Secondary Solutions

I came across this on Pinterest, and it's a simple yet fail-safe list of what to cover those first few days .  If there's anything I prioritize it's these same 7 things:

1. Entering the room
2. What to do right away upon entering the room
3. Bathroom policy
4. Cell phones/music
5. Turning in work
6. Late work
7. Class expectations (like grades, cold-calling, syllabus, signing up for Remind101, etc.)

Deciding the specifics of each of these expectations requires finding the right balance between your personality and school requirements. 

Here's what I mean: Bathroom passes are a school-wide issue.  I don't have leeway there.  It is what it is.  However, late work has no school-wide policy.  I have room here to make decisions about the way I want it to work.  I tell students during day one that I accept late assignments, but I give cut-off dates throughout the quarter so I'm not swamped with thoughtless last minute submissions.  These dates are communicated. I don't grade every single night, so if I'm not grading with militant urgency why would I expect that from my students?  I give students absolute deadlines when I need their work to get my work done.  The only exceptions are large projects/papers.   

I'm not going to implement a perfect system where X many days late equals loss of X points (I've tried).  I'm not going to deliver an absolute punishment with no chance of recovering in some way to a student for making a bad choice (I always rescind for someone).  I'm not going to alienate a student or family (I must be a negotiator and partner).  This isn't to say I'm not firm in my expectations, but I don't have an elaborate system that takes more time than it's worth to track and traps me into situations where I am inconsistent.  This fits my teaching style.  The goal, is to be clear in communicating whatever the expectation is and then following-through.  

Did they learn anything?

Pinterest Link

No seriously, did they?  Or did they game the system?


My biggest pet peeve as a teacher (besides cheating) is when students do their work out of a desire for points.  When they game the system, do what they think they must, so they can move along.  Checking for learning is how I beat them at their game.  My biggest strategy is cold-calling, and I will keep doing it this year.  I like this info-graphic quite a bit, and I plan to diversify my learning checks a bit more using some of these suggestions.

How I want to incorporate this:
One particular cloud sticks out to me - "Compare: Compare your work to an 'A' work."  Thanks to my school's collaborative learning teams and my wonderful colleague who shares a classroom with me, I have been so much better at this in recent years.  One thing she ALWAYS does is have an exemplar for students to see what the end product should demonstrate.  We even gave students examples of different levels of achievement with certain assignments.  This seems obvious, but when I was a new teacher I struggled to add exemplars because it takes more time (who has more time!?).   

Hold up though, this isn't really my point.  Anybody can do this and check for their students' learning without an initial exemplar.  Why not take that final step in a lesson to have students reflect on how their work stacked up compared to an A?  Take the 5 minutes and give students some closure by posting or distributing an "A" assignment. Ask students to rate themselves or explain the differences in their work and the exemplar.  As teachers, we should have a few exemplars or else we just got checked - better reteach.  I also love how this helps students because the "A" work isn't an example from a textbook.

Start this habit right away - first few weeks.  Make it the norm for students to reflect on their performance.  Loop the reflection in later by asking them to analyze how the reflections have changed the way they approach learning.  If we can continue to compare and reflect we make learning authentic and meaningful.

Teach kids how to teach themselves.

Side-note:

Pinterest is full of great links to teaching ideas.  I find myself constantly adding links to my "teaching board" but never really going back to those links.  I plan to use this space to explore some of those great resources I find.