Holly- The First-Year Teachers Survival Guide (3rd Edition)

The First-Year Teachers Survival Guide (3rd edition)

 By Julia G. Thompson 

Summary: 

This huge book could not be a more hands on teaching tool for the starting teacher. It is packed full of information an how-too's for the new teacher from what to keep on your desk to what to do if a student is crying and you don't know why. These easy to use strategies come complete with easy to copy worksheets to supplement these strategies and straightforward guidelines.

The book is divided into 17 sections, each full of helpful advice for your first year teaching. I have pulled out a few helpful tips from each of these sections.

1.     Know What it Means to Be a Twenty-First-Century Educator

•    Being an educator can be very challenging, however a good teacher can turn those challenges around and make them positive opportunities for growth

•   There are three important principles behind being professional:

•   1. Commit yourself to maintaining high standards of professional learning

•   2. Commit yourself to establishing a productive, positive classroom environment

•   3. Commit yourself to actively promoting student achievement and learning

•   There are also professional responsibilities that come with that...

•   1. Create a culture of high performance

•   2. Use action research to inform classroom decisions

•   3. Become a highly qualified and effective teacher

•   Start reflecting!! Have colleges observe you, write stuff down, survey your students.

•   Find a real life (not from tv) mentor, someone who is enthusiastic about teaching, about students, and about helping you learn to be a better teacher

•   In observations:

•   1. Be proactive- review observation form

•   2. Keep your lesson simple so that you can do it we'll

•   3. Tell your students what is going to happen

•   4. Write out your lesson, have extra copies of handouts, text and other materials for observer

•   5. Get control of your anxiety

•   Manage your stress!!

•   Make time for yourself

•   Work efficiently while you are at school so that you can enjoy time away from school

•    Set boundaries. Don't stay on-call 24 hours

•   Remember your career is only one part if your life

2. Develop the Practical Skills You'll Need to Manage a Classroom

•   Keep your desk area cluster free

•   Tips on how to spend a budget

•   Make sure you have a plan on filing and managing paper before the term begins

•   Make sure you be very careful with how you use your school computer and what you put on it

•   Organize your time and write yourself reminders to maximize your time

•   Great tips are listed here for what to do when you have just a few minutes

•   Lists of what papers to discard, and which you should keep

•   Grading

•   Stager duet dates for multiple classes

•   Have specific rubrics

•   Highlight parts the student did particularly well

•   Time frames of when to do what leading up to a semester

•   Pay attention to 'high traffic' areas in the classroom when setting it up

•   You need to have sleeting charts (and seating arrangements) regardless of the age of your students to eliminate various issues and accommodate all students

3. Collaborate with Others in Your School and Community

•   There are many different 'teams' within your school

•   Be carful when in a disagreement with a colleague, respond with things by taking a problem-solving approach to work out a resolution

•   Don't be one of the 'difficult' people in your school, listen more then you talk, be tolerant of others

•   Be very careful of what you post on social media sites and be aware of your school/divisions policies!

•   Your attendance affects the entire school! If you miss a class then other teachers may have to step in for you and miss a prep

•   Learn names of ALL staff in school as quickly as possible and develop professional relationships with them

•   Do not threaten to send a student to the principle instead of solving the problem in the classroom, then when you do have to send a student it means something

•   Reach out to parents with good-news, they will then be more likely to support you when there is a problem

•   Make sure your classroom is as transparent as possible so that parents know what's going on

4. Begin a Successful School Term

•   The first day of school is important and can be intimidating for everyone, get off to a good start

•   Priorities for first day of school

•   1. Take charge of your class

•   2. Calm your students fears

•   3. Introduce yourself

•   4. Engage your students minds

•   5. Begin to teach the class routines

•   6. Build a classroom community

•   Have a first day of school welcome packet that includes the humorous documents they need to revive the first day. For elementary, help students organize this and have them decorate this personally

•   Learn students names quickly!! Repeat the name after the student says it and admit it if you forget. Also, make sure you get to know students personally

•   Use positive labels for you class, especially for classes that see themselves as troublesome.

•   Students will be added or removed from your class, not have the required materials, or have forgotten course content from previous years quite frequently in the first week. Be prepared!

5. Develop Positive Classroom Relationships

•   Show that you care about your students

•   Have a thorough knowledge of your subject matter

•   Take command of the class

•   Act in a mature manner all of the time, avoid being sarcastic, loosing your temper, being untruthful or unprepared, playing favourites

•   Maintain a certain emotional distance from your students

•   Make sure you set boundaries with students so that you don't become too close with students

•   Make sure to create a good environment between students in your class,

•   Create a risk free environment allowing students to "phone a friend" if they are struggling

6. Control Class Time

•   Have established routines so thar students start working as soon as they enter the classroom

•   Reduce distractions in the classroom

•   Raise student awareness, they should know that time in the classroom is valuable

•   Be very organized and have materials ready so that students don't waist time

•   Have more work available if students finish the task

•   Have a warm up activity for the first 10mins of class to keep students productive

•   Set a timer for a change in activities to make transitions productive

•   Don't allow more then 2 students to leave the room at a time and have a sign out system

•   For the last 10mins of class, do an 8min closing activity and allow 2mins for them to get ready

7. Manage Your Classroom

•   Set clear expectations for your students and post them in your classroom

•   Model behaviours so students know what you expect

•   Enforce classroom rules as consistently as possible

•   Make positive consequences rather than the negative ones the focus of your teaching

•   Ensure your expectations are appropriate for your students

8. Motivate Students to Succeed

•   Be positive if you want positive results

•   Take time to help students understand the connection between their own efforts and success

•   Plan homework carefully so that students can be successful

•   Use many different methods to motivate students

9.  Choose Appropriate Instructional strategies and resources

•   There is constant educational research going on so pay attention and take advantage of it

•   There are many instructional strategies that teachers can use. Some of which are:

•   Reflective discussions- students making connections between content and experience

•   Active learning- students responsible for own learning through engagement

•   Interactive learning- various social networking platforms as part of classroom activities

•   Problem-based learning- students collaborating to solve problems while learning

•   Inquiry methods- students using higher level thinking and research

•   Hands-on instruction- active learning using manipulatives

•   Direct instruction- oral presentations, lectures...

•   Cooperative learning- encourages students to work in groups

•   Blended learning- classroom interactions combined with digital activities

•   Curriculum compacting- for higher-achieving learners

•   Contract learning- individual contracts for each students in how the student will master content

•   Webquests- students solve problems through resources found online

•   Socratic seminars- student participation in open discussion of text or media

•   Flipped learning- teacher assigns online work for outside of class

•   Reciprocal teaching- students take turns teaching material

•   There is lots of effective technology to incorporate into your classroom, use it!

10. Design Effective Instruction

•   Make the decision to carefully plan your lessons, your students and you will benefit

•   Preparing g starts before the school year begins. You have to get off on the right foot

•   Review and follow your provincial standards

•   Make sure to assess students prior knowledge

•   Use resources to make your lesson planning easier

•   Make sure to create unit plans, don't just wing it

11. Deliver engaging instruction

•   Students will remember the teachers who had charisma

•   Make your class about the students

•   Smile at your students, great your students

•   Don't be too strict

•   Laugh at yourself

•   Video tape yourself to see how to improve

•   Know how long to wait if there is a pause

•   Maintain eye contact with students

•   Use your voice and body language to motivate

12. Meet the needs of your students

•   Make sure to use differentiated instruction to support all learners, so use many different strategies to teach the same thing so that each individual students can get the concept. This should be carefully planned and proactive, student centred, and flexible.

•   Key strategies of differentiation are:

•   Design respectful tasks

•   Use flexible grouping

•   Create tiered instruction

•   Provide anchor activities

•   There is also lots of specifics for students that have ADHD, are EAL or are coming from other various situations in this section

13. Assess your students' progress

•   There are formative assessments that are done throughout a unit to ensure the students are understanding the material being taught. Exit slips are a great way to do this.

•   Make sure to conduct baseline data before starting a unit so that you know where you have to start and what material your students know

•    When many students fail a test or quiz, there could be many reasons explaining this. Some of which are

•   The students did not prepare themselves

•   You did not help the students master the material well enough

•   There was an error in the assessment

•   There are lots of helpful websites to help you create rubrics and electronic grade books

14. Level the playing field by covering basic skills

•   Media literacy is a huge skill in the 21st century. Make sure to incorporate online and digital activities in your classroom when possible as so,ex students may not have access to this at home.

•   Listening skills are also important. There are lots of games that could help with this and the skill will be carried lifelong. I personally find that is is a skill that most of our young people today struggle with

•   Speaking skills, right up there with listening. Public speaking is a very important skill but so is just communicating with others through talking.

•   Writing skills. Hold students accountable for there writing and take it seriously

•   Vocabulary acquisition skills. This is important across the board, from pre-k to grad students. Try doing word of the day to expose students to a larger vocabulary

•   Critical thinking skills. Start incorporating this just by having students justify their answers.

•   Reading skills. This is so,etching usually stressed by the school as a whole as it is so critical. Make sure to give positive support to struggling readers

15. Prevent Discipline Problems

•   Punishment is not the way to prevent problems as it is only a short term solution (among with many other problems)

•   Self-discipline is the key to behavioural problems

•   Beware of the cause of the discipline problem (ie the work is to easy, they see no connection between the work and daily life, at home stresses...)

•   Stay positive and become a consist and fair teacher, and make sure you always know what is going on in class to stay on top of all issues

•   Listen to your students so that you show them you care and you can respond appropriately

16. Manage Discipline Problems

•   Consistently enforce rules, don't ease up

•   Respond to a situation rather then just reacting to it, you are the adult and need to keep your emotions under control

•   Don't take it personally when students misbehave

•   The difficult students are the ones that need you the most, don't give up on them

•   Have conferences with students who misbehave, this develops a positive relationship with them

•   There is also a list in this section of potential difficult examples and how to deal with them

17. Learn to Solve Classroom Problems

•    Make sure you use reflective teaching and a problem solving approach to solve any classroom problems

•   Here they also have a list of potential problems a teacher could encounter in the classroom  and suggestions on how to solve them

Critique:

 I love how this book is full of easy, ready to use solutions for many first year teachers to bring to the classroom. It is full of great tips and reminders of things that many first year teachers won't even think of. The only downfall in this handbook is that their is really a huge amount of content. I think it is best used as a read through and then a reference material rather then a full guide. I think that reading and following all the processes in this book would become ver overwhelming for a first year educator especially while starting a new position.