Let us help you teach like a ninja!
Some students love working in groups, while others prefer to work independently. There are many reasons students should learn to work in groups, but often we find teachers forget to teach the students what that looks like. Students need explicit teaching to understand the different group roles and processes. Here are some activities you can try to help your students get the most out of their group work.
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If you’re anything like me, you were playing school with your dolls, neighbours or siblings as soon as you could walk. Teaching is just part of my soul, but there might come a time in your life when you should quit your teaching job and that’s ok.
If you are looking for a post that will tell you it’s ok to quit your teaching job to run away with the circus, this isn’t really that kind of post. This isn’t what you can do instead of teaching.
Instead, this post is about knowing when it’s time to change the teaching job you are currently doing. That could be a change of subject matter, grade level, locations, training or type of school position. Change is a good thing. It can breathe life back into your calling.
Read on to find out when you should quit.
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Teaching has always been an isolating profession. We spend all day in a classroom with little people who get our jokes. The adult conversations we get happen during recess or staff meetings or in the bathroom line waiting for a toilet. It can leave anyone feeling disconnected.
My husband has a joke about teachers, they can seek each other out anywhere in the world. It never fails that when we travel to another country and meet another couple, one of them will be a teacher. He calls it teacher radar.
And it’s true. When two teachers meet in the wild, they talk about teaching. Because it’s another human in the world who actually gets it.
I mean, Mr. Ninja tries to be supportive, but unless you’re in the trenches, you don’t really get it.
How do you connect with other teachers? Come read about our struggles and some of the solutions.
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We firmly believe that teachers should enjoy the time off they have and shouldn’t be forced to work. It’s the time we all need to replenish and prepare, but if you’re a little like us, you thrive when you are well-planned and prepared. It’s time to get organized for the year ahead.
That’s why we wrote this post. These are the things we try to get done over the summer months so we don’t have to worry about them in the first days of school. Having a simple plan makes answering the bombardment of questions from students so much easier.
Are you getting ready to start a new school year? Well, keep reading because these common sense things are the things you should be thinking about. We’re sharing them because these are all things we messed up in the past and want to pass down our wisdom.
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This is the time of year when we question whether or not we can continue teaching. Reflection is important. It’s how we grow, but maybe you’re feeling like a failing teacher.
It doesn’t matter that we have years of experience behind us and the school year is finished, but there’s just something about this time of year that puts us in a funk. Add a pandemic into the mix and there’s even more confusion.
Even more, new teachers really start to question whether or not they can cut it as a teacher. This is the time of year when we tend to field questions from our new-to-school teachers and over and over we hear the same issues.
Maybe some of these sound like you, so before you throw in the towel and quit everything you’ve worked so hard to achieve, please keep reading.
[Read more…] about Are You Feeling Like a Failing Teacher?
Is it possible that your willingness to help your students might actually be hindering their growth? As teachers, we intend to help our students learn as much as possible as we are often measured by our students’ successes, but is our eagerness to help accidentally sabotaging our students? Do you teach helplessness?
We work with many different professionals as a classroom teacher. We deal with other teachers, interventionists, support staff such as Educational Assistants, speech-language supports and then outside systems such as social workers, occupational therapists and private medical professionals. The goal of all these people is to have students be successful.
But sometimes students need to struggle. When you take away the struggle, you might actually be preventing learning from happening. In fact, you might be reinforcing negative behaviours such as learned helplessness.
[Read more…] about How to Accidentally Teach Helplessness to Students
