Ninja Notes

Let us help you teach like a ninja!

First Year Teachers

How to Thrive During Your Student Teaching

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Are you ready for your student teaching placement? Come read through some of our best advice to help get you started on the right foot. There are even some free resources to get you started.

Of course, you want to be a great teacher, so congratulations on getting the chance to be a teacher! Your student teaching experience is usually the first chance you’ll get to take control of the classroom. Many factors can come into play and you might have lots of “when I have my own classroom” moments, but use this time as a chance to learn and ask questions.

We’ve been lucky enough to have amazing supervising teachers when we began our careers and it was important to us to take on student teachers when we were ready for it. Passing on our knowledge is important. This is all the advice we have given to our student teachers over the years and we hope it can help you, too.

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How to Create a Sense of Agency in the Classroom

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Are you struggling with classroom management? This strategy changed our entire approach. No charts, games or reward systems! Just classroom management that works! Come and read this post to make a change in your classroom today.

Imagine a classroom where the students monitored themselves-and, not in that “hall pass police officer” type of way. Imagine a classroom where students encouraged each other to keep the room tidy, put things away and treat each other with respect. We call this a sense of agency.

It’s possible because each year we turn out a classroom full of polite and respectful students, but it takes work. Students need to be taught how to make decisions that are positive and what to do when they make a mistake. Creating a sense of agency is just as important as all the math and reading skills. It’s the key to classroom management. Want to know how?

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