school success Archives - Page 17 of 27 - Inspired Together Teachers

Use Your TEAM to Help You Thrive

February 13, 2018 by Inspired Together Teachers Leave a Comment

If you have watched any part of the Olympic games, chances are you have witnessed the power of teamwork.

Athletes don’t get to the Olympic level of competition on their own. They have a team surrounding them, including coaches, trainers, and their fellow teammates. Coaches and trainers are paid to help athletes, and it is no surprise that they are influential in getting an athlete prepared for such a high level of competition. We expect that we will have and need mentors who can help us reach the next level.

Athletes also use their teammates to help improve their performance. Whether they are part of a solo sport such as ice skating, or a team sport such as hockey, they are surrounded by peers. If you listen to interviews with athletes, you will often hear them talk about watching and learning from both their teammates and their rivals. They also talk about wanting to win to be part of something bigger than themselves- to help their team and their country. They want to bring pride to their communities.

We don’t need to be Olympic athletes to recognize that we can use a team to help us get better. We believe that the best teachers and the best schools have deliberately built a team which supports, challenges and stretches teachers to become their best.

How can you use the teamwork model to grow? Here are our suggestions:

Recognize the talents and gifts of yourself and your colleagues.

We each have talents and gifts. It is easy to take our own talents for granted. We think, if I can do something easily, everyone must be able to do it easily. In reality, others struggle with things that come naturally to you. Likewise, others do naturally what you struggle to do.

Recognize what it is that you do well. Do you relate well to students? Do you have a great sense of humor and use it effectively in your classroom? Are you very organized? Do you connect well with parents? Do you use technology successfully?

How can you help a colleague by using your strengths? Look for appropriate times to share your special knowledge or skill with others.

Olympic athletes know to look at the teammates and competitors who are ahead of them to see the skills they need to develop. Look for colleagues who shine in areas where you are struggling. Watch them and learn from them. Ask for their help. Allow them to challenge you and stretch you to become better.

Find shared dreams and vision.

It is easy to see the ways we are all different. If we focus only on our differences, it is difficult to build community.

Watch when an Olympic athlete breaks a record or achieves an exemplary performance. Everyone, even rivals, cheer. They recognize a feat of importance, and even though it means they might not go home with a medal, they know the moment for what it is- a celebration of glorious human achievement.

Look beyond the differences with your colleagues. There are human attributes you share. Perhaps you are all working to help a particular student achieve. Perhaps you share the vision of how to transform your school. Perhaps you are united in the face of a district challenge.

When we look past our differences and into our shared dreams and vision, we can use that synergy to help us create better classrooms and schools. Imagine what the world would be like if we saw everyone, no matter their age, gender, ethnicity, ability, religion or political beliefs, as a co-creator of a shared dream. The world would be a better place.

Share the work.

Of course, Olympic athletes get to their level with many hours of individual work. There are also times that they share the work.

In team sports such as hockey or basketball, members must work together in order to win. It is also important in individual sports. For example, look at team competitions such as the team skating event or team gymnastics event. The team wins a medal by combining their efforts and becoming the best as a group.

In a team medal competition, each member has their role to play for the good of the group. Some are expected to win their individual event. Others have virtually no chance at winning their individual event but they know that their efforts will win points towards a team gold medal. They know what they need to do in order to help the team as a whole succeed. The medal is not earned by a single person, but by a team working in combination.

Think of schools like a team event. You have your own work in your own classroom and that is important. It is your individual event. You are also a part of a team- your school’s team-and you play a role in the success of that school. You might contribute to the overall morale of the school. You might share a talent such as contributing your writing to the school newsletter. Maybe you are part of a committee writing a grant or working on a new assessment system. Whatever it is, you are taking the opportunity to help the school achieve more. Only through working together, will a school ever achieve greatness.

When we share our talents, find a shared dream or vision, and share in building greatness in our school, we are using our TEAM to help us thrive.

How are you using your TEAM to help you thrive? We would live to hear your ideas?

Our best,

How to Remain Positive in the Face of Challenges You Can’t Control

February 6, 2018 by Inspired Together Teachers 2 Comments

It is easy to become overwhelmed by educational challenges and issues that are out of your control. As a teacher, you will be faced with policies, procedures and circumstances that may frustrate you and make you feel ineffective. Most teachers will tell you that it is not the students or the curriculum, but the bureaucratic demands that they must conform to that cause them the most grief.

At a district, state or national level, educational change is fraught with differing viewpoints about what is best for students. Politicians tie educational reforms to any number of issues that are not even related to education. School funding may be a pawn in a chess game for highway funding or tax incentives to entice corporate development. In this arena, change is not only difficult but out of the realm of control for many teachers, especially beginning teachers.

Other struggles come from environmental circumstances that seem out of our control. You may teach in a failing school or in a community with a lack of parental support. Your students may live in poverty and families struggle to provide the basics such as food, shelter and medical care. Teachers are tasked with, and often assessed by, improving students test scores for children who often don’t even show up for school.

How do you maintain positivity in the face of very real struggles and under circumstances you cannot control?

They key to finding success despite the challenges we face is to understand what you can control, and do your best to be proactive in your responses to challenges. Here are 6 ways you can respond positively to issues that are out of your control.

Build your own positive classroom ecosystem.

You may not like the top-down systematic policies that your school must adhere to, and you may wish for better environments for your students. But at the end of the day, your classroom is under your control. You can make it a positive and safe place for students. You can encourage and celebrate student growth and achievement. You can teach students life and social skills. You can teach students the skills they need to learn and to succeed, and help them develop habits that lead to success.

Good teachers know that they teach far more than the curriculum they are given. They help their students to be better people. Building a supportive classroom community doesn’t take a lot of money and it can be accomplished within the boundaries of any required school initiatives.

Take opportunities to educate the public.

You don’t have to be a lobbyist to help to inform people about the issues that educators face. Your family and friends will ask about school. A local school issue will be a topic of discussion at the grocery store or at the community pool. You may even be invited to a school board meeting to share a program you have participated in. Each of these is an opportunity to be frank and honest, sharing your struggles and your ideas about what schools and teachers really need.

Most educational reforms are well -meant. Lack of experience and knowledge by those in power leads to policies that don’t work. You can inform others by telling of your experiences in a non-judgmental, factual way. Share what has worked for you and what you believe students need. All educational reforms need to be made with the input of teachers. You may only play a small part in providing that input, but if every teacher did this, it would make an impact.

Be careful about the negative messages you put into the world.

In many societies, teachers are both revered and well paid. They are treated as professionals and high respected. This is often not the case in the U.S. today, where teacher bashing has become common place.

If teachers want to be respected, they need to be respectable. Most teachers are consummate professionals. However, sometimes the messages teachers put into the world are less professional.

For example, Facebook is full of memes with countdowns to the number of days left before a school break. The subtle message to students, parents and the entire community is “my job is so bad that I can’t wait for the next 21 days until summer break.” Another Facebook meme rejoices, “Off for three months, too bad for the rest of you suckahs…” We all enjoy a funny post, but consider the underlying message before you post.

Don’t let assessments be your only focus.

There is a lot of pressure today to achieve progress on standardized tests. Many teachers are also required to do weekly probes and regular unit assessments. Sometimes these assessments are not even directly tied to the curriculum you are required to teach. Yet when students don’t achieve the required scores, both teachers and students are demoralized.

Keep in mind that an assessment is one piece of data, one picture of one moment in time. Be sure to keep other forms of data that show student progress. Multiple data points will make a stronger case for student learning.

Help students stay motivated and positive by explaining what the test scores mean. For example, standardized tests do a much better job of showing district growth than they do showing individual growth. Show students and parents how they are making progress by sharing their work.

Keep parents informed and engaged.

The key to good parental interactions is to keep parents informed and engaged. Even if parents seem disconnected, keep trying. Use any means necessary including your schools’ parent portal and on-line grading system, newsletters, a classroom web page and good old-fashioned notes home. Share your units, your objectives, your goals for the students and especially, your students’ wins. One positive phone call home can sometimes turn around an unmotivated or under performing student.

Know that you have more power than you think in affecting the lives of your students.

This is the realization that keeps many teachers going. You may not be able to change the system, but you can help this child. You may not be able to provide a safe environment in a troubled neighborhood, but you can provide a safe environment in your classroom. You may not be able to help a student learn everything, but you can help them learn important things that have the power to change their lives.

It is helpful to know that teaching struggles are real and can be overwhelming. We also think it is helpful to know that if you remain focused on the things under your control, you can ultimately affect positive results.

Our best,

Have you gotten our free list of phrases to use to improve your classroom management? If not, get it now!

What to Do When You Are Overwhelmed: 6 Steps To Help You Get Back in Control

January 30, 2018 by Inspired Together Teachers 2 Comments

It happens to every teacher- you have too much to do and are struggling with how to get it all done. Some days you become so paralyzed that you are unable to choose what to do next and the next thing you know you’re surfing Facebook and watching kid president videos.

Procrastination is a common sign of overwhelm. Feelings of defeat and despair can show up too, as any new teacher who has spent a lunch hour crying in the car can attest.

How do you take action when you are so overwhelmed that you can’t focus? How do you choose from the many projects and goals you want and need to accomplish?

Here are 6 steps to take when you feel overwhelmed:

Stay in the moment.

When you are overwhelmed you are often living in the future. For example, conferences are coming up and you need to finish grades, you need to order the supplies for the science unit, and you need to prepare comments for an upcoming IEP meeting. The students will be in your room in five minutes. Before you know it, you are hyperventilating.

Take a breath and return to the moment. What do you need to do right now?

Overwhelm is often about a false timeline. Our heads tell us everything must be done right this minute. Ask yourself, what time constraints do I believe exist? Which deadlines are real and which are self-imposed?

2. Make a list.

Sometimes it helps to make list of everything you need to do. This is especially true if your worries keep you up at night.

Grab all those sticky notes and small pieces of paper where you have jotted notes and put them on one master list. This will help by getting things off your mind and onto paper and lessen the chance that you will forget.

Once your list is written down, prioritize the “need to-do” versus the “should do” items on the list. We all have a list of things it would be nice to do or that we would like to do. Those things can stay on the list, but they have a lower priority than the things that you must do. Turning in grades is a priority, color coding, labeling and alphabetizing your binders is a “nice to-do” item. Those can wait.

Assign due dates to priorities. Then schedule them into your planning periods.

If you have many large projects, break them down into smaller steps. It also helps to chunk like items together, for example making all the phone calls after school or gathering all the materials you need in the morning before school.

If you get overwhelmed by the enormity of your master to-do list, the next step is for you.

3. Take action on one small thing.

Even baby steps will help to thwart inertia. Just pick one small thing and do it. Then pick another small thing and do that. If you keep doing small things, eventually you will finish projects.

Go ahead and check off things once you have finished them; it will make you feel accomplished and let you see your progress!

4. Clear some space.

If your physical space is out of control, clearing some space can help you focus. Pick a corner of your desk and clear it off. Return things to their proper place. Toss the broken pens.

If your classroom is a mess, enlist your students in helping you pick it up. Together you can accomplish a lot of cleaning and organization in a few minutes. Look around at things that need to be cleaned up or organized and give each student one small thing to do.

Clearing your space often helps to clear your mind and make you feel better.

5. Consider outsourcing some of your tasks.

Many of us fall into the trap of believing that we, personally, have to do everything. In reality, you can probably outsource some of the things on your to-do list. Which items would be better done by someone else? Could you enlist the help of a classroom associate or a parent volunteer? Could another teacher, school counselor, or principal help you with a student challenge you are facing? Could you enlist students to do more of the routine classroom chores?

A bulletin board designed and put up by students might not be as polished as the one you were planning, but the students will have ownership and may even prefer their bulletin board to yours.

6. Understand that you are doing the best you can.

We’ve all worried that we are not good enough or that we don’t have what it takes. We struggle because we have a lack of experience, knowledge or skill.

In the beginning, you won’t have the ability to handle everything smoothly. You won’t have everything figured out ahead of time.

It’s okay. We build strength and skill by being in the game and by taking action. We gain knowledge, experience and skill as a teacher by doing the job, not by thinking about it or wishing for it or obsessively worrying. Our strength comes after we do things.

You are good enough. You will get better. Believe it because it is true.

We understand the drive for growth and the pull of perfection. However, you will feel less overwhelmed when you realize that we don’t go into something strong and talented, we gain strength and talent by doing, trying, and learning.

In the busy schools and classrooms of today, you are bound to feel overwhelmed from time-to-time. We hope that you can use some of these strategies to feel less burdened and more in control.

Good luck!

Do you feel overwhelmed ? What do you do to get yourself back on track and stay productive? We would love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

How to Create an Amazing and Effective Sub Folder

January 23, 2018 by Inspired Together Teachers 3 Comments

You NEED a great sub folder. If it hasn’t happened already, it is going to happen- you are going to be sick or have an unexpected emergency that requires you to be absent from school. No matter how healthy you are and how strong your immune system, you will be in contact with students who sometimes come to school ill. Beginning teachers have not developed immunity to the germs that float around schools and are particularly susceptible to meeting those germs in person.

Some school require teachers to keep a substitute folder on their desks or in the office at all times. Teachers have been known to come to school late at night, even though they are ill, to prepare plans for the next day. Many teachers send plans to school in the morning with a friend or spouse. Other teachers have learned through experience that it is better to keep a well-planned sub folder than to be caught unprepared.

Trying to prepare good lesson plans when you are not feeling well or when you are in the midst of a family emergency is no fun. We recommend that you prepare a complete and highly usable sub folder.

Here are our steps to creating a good sub folder:

1. Get a file folder with pockets, an accordion file, a binder or even a plastic tub.

2. Label the folder, binder or tub in large, easy to see print.

3. Fill the folder with the following:

Your daily and weekly class schedule

Your class attendance lists and seating charts

Attendance and lunch count procedures

A list of classroom rules and expectations

A list of students with medical concerns (be thoughtful about student privacy issues but share what is necessary)

Location of emergency information for fire drills etc.

A general note to the sub explaining your routines

A list of reliable students and colleagues who can answer questions or be helpful

Include two or three days’ worth of lesson plans and activities that are related to your subject and that provide important skill work. Your emergency lesson plans should not be directly connected to your current unit of study. This allows you to keep emergency sub plans without having to change them in the moment to reflect the current unit.

Include routine classroom activities, such as silent reading time, or work centers or stations.

Include activities that you have used successfully and that students enjoy. Review activities or instructional games that students know how to play and enjoy are often good choices.

Materials such as Weekly Readers or other student magazines (with the teacher’s edition) are self-contained and provide good skill work.

Provide handouts or other materials needed for the lessons. Label everything with sticky notes.

Try to keep the lessons low tech, as technology often adds a level of complication, but if you do want subs to use the tech in your room be sure to include logins and passwords to things such as your computer and smart board.

Though it does take some time to set up a good sub folder, the time will be well spent when you find yourself suddenly ill or in the midst of a family emergency. You will feel a level of security and comfort knowing that no matter what happens, you have done your best to leave your students in good hands.

Happy planning,

P.S. If you would like our favorite 5 step lesson plan formula template, fill out the form below and we will send it to you!

Huddled Masses: How A Teacher Can be a Beacon of Hope For Students

January 16, 2018 by Inspired Together Teachers 4 Comments

This week we have a guest post written by 4th grade teacher Colin Rust. Colin is also one of the Thriving Young Teachers mentors. One of Colin’s gifts is building a strong classroom community. He finds the strengths of each student and helps students work together to support each other. You will understand why when you read his inspiring post.

Huddled Masses: How A Teacher Can be a Beacon of Hope For Students

by Colin Rust.

Each year as a part of our ELA Unit my fourth graders explore the ever invigorating topic of immigration. No sarcasm here, I promise. I find the learning of a horde of people moving very exciting. The idea that at one time millions of people decided to pack up everything they owned, or what would fit in a small backpack, and move halfway across the globe on a whim of a dream, is an adventure of epic proportions. Along with immigration we discuss a famous landmark that has a close link to these journeys: The Statue of Liberty.

This tall, beautiful symbol of hope holds a great deal of meaning to many immigrants both past and present. She stands for hope, for freedom, and for dreams that wouldn’t have come true if some have never made it to America. She holds a blazing torch which ushers souls into the harbor. The students learn a great deal about this gargantuan guide through research and readings; however, this year it wasn’t the seven spikes on her crown that peaked my interest. It wasn’t the fact that she is resting one of her feet, but it was the little poem that is screwed into the base of this beacon of hope.

The poem, entitled ‘The New Colossus’ was written by Emma Lazarus in 1883 as part of a fundraising campaign by the assemblers of the statue, basically the epitome of the “write the best short story” competitions. Lazarus compares the new shining statue to The Colossus of Rhodes, an Ancient Greek statue that welcomes sailors into the city of Rhodes. That’s all fine and dandy but this isn’t a bloomin’ history post, so move on Rust, move on. Anyway she wrote this poem and this poem has a lot to say, and its meaning goes far beyond immigration.

The poem itself is multiple stanzas long, but I will focus on the most famous part:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

This little bit of this poem, this sonnet, really spoke to me as a teacher. Think about this. Each year a new ship of fourth grade immigrants leave their homelands and venture to the great unknown. We, as teachers, should be their Lady Liberty (or Liberty Lad, if you will), welcoming them with open arms. Our torches blazing the way to their hopes and dreams.

As educators we need to welcome this group. We need to accept them all as they are. Sure are they all shining, first class voyagers? No. Some come to you a little battered and yes, broken. However as an educator, as a teacher, you have a duty to accept those poor, those tired, and those huddled masses.

Some of these kiddos are coming to you, looking to you as a beacon of hope, a fresh start, a living breathing dream. It is a huge disservice to them to look down upon them based on hearsay from others in the building. I know we all dread “those kids”, the kids that seem to walk the halls with a Google Maps pin on their head. A pin that literally shouts,”Hey! This is that kid that people were talking about!” My challenge every year is to try not to listen to what others say about students. Yes, I welcome any helpful advice, but as far as I’m concerned I’ll form my own opinions after getting to know them.

These “huddled masses” have been assigned me as their teacher. Just as the statue didn’t get a choice to say who floated passed her, we don’t get a choice in which students we get each year. However, instead of throwing a fit about it, or lamenting in the fact that you “got the hard class again”, I believe you need to take the opportunity and look at your students and ask yourself: “What do these students need from me?” How can you take your wretched refuse and turn them into shining examples of upstanding citizens of your classroom community? You might be the best thing for “that kid.” Be the teacher to wash clean that student’s reputation. Be the teacher that will change that student’s life.

And, hey, I’m not perfect. In fact this year I found myself in the same predicament. I had a student who I couldn’t grasp. I couldn’t seem to get a handle on what to do to help this child. Was this the best fit? Would this student thrive somewhere else? And the biggest question, why me? These questions may not have definite answers, but if I put them in the golden light of the New Colossus’ torch, some answers seem to appear. I can do something for this student. I can make a difference. I may not know why I was chosen, maybe it was simply that my roster was short, or maybe I was meant to change this student’s fate.

This year I had to come face to face with that sonnet, pull myself up by my gigantic sea foam toga, and do my best for this student, I needed to give them a chance. And isn’t that what we all want as immigrants coming to a land? Give them a chance. It’s free. It’s easy. It could change a life. Or maybe more.

Colin Rust is a 4th grade teacher at Brookdale Elementary School in Naperville, Illinois.

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