Saturday 15 March 2014

Nicole Vaughan- The First-Year Teacher's Survival Guide


The First-Year Teacher’s Survival Guide

By Julia G. Thompson

 

Summary:

            Assume Your Professional Responsibilities:  The first section on this text focuses on the challenges of teaching in the 21st Century.  The focus of the chapter is on teacher professionalism through maintaining a classroom that focuses on high performance.  This section also focuses on the importance of teacher self reflection and peer observations from more experiences teachers, who can aid as mentors during the first year.

 

            Develop the Practical Skills You’ll Need to Manage a Classroom:  This section outlines the essential tools all first year teachers need to succeed in the profession.  The text outlines the importance of a teacher desk free of clutter that includes items such as pens, pencils, file folders, labels and a hole punch (to name a few).  This section of the text also focuses on the importance of prioritizing items that need to be accomplished in the school day, stating “with this type of workplace pressure, it is crucial to prioritize your tasks so you can accomplish everything you need you need to do; move forward in meeting your goals; reduce your own stress level; and, most important, be the teacher your students need you to be” (Thompson 42).  It is suggested to make to do lists in order to accomplish daily classroom needs, as well as using daily and weekly reminders.

 

            Collaborate with Others in Your School and Community:  Thompson’s text refers to the school environment as a “network of teams” and as a new teacher you are supported by this community of teams, so it is important to discuss ideas with others.  Thompson states “one of the most important facets of your professional reputation- one you should establish as quickly as possible- is your reputation for integrity” (76).

 

            Begin a Successful School Term:  A successful school term starts on the very first day.  The first day of school can be exciting but also challenging for both students and the first year teacher.  It is important to understand students have anxiety about starting a new school year so steps must be made to calm these fears by creating a welcoming environment and introducing classroom routines as expected behaviour.  It is also important to build a sense of community in the classroom so students feel a part of a team.  This can be done by including students in tasks such as handing out materials or having them help each other.

 

            Develop Positive Classroom Relationships:  Thompson outlines how teacher’s in the 21st century “are expected to help students learn by encouraging them to think for themselves, solve problems, determine meaning based on what they already know, and be much more self-directed than those students of the past who were expected to be passive receptors of knowledge” (140).  A large portion of this section of the text focuses on conducting ourselves in a mature manner and taking on the position of role model in the classroom.  The text explains how students have a natural habit to ask questions and some questions are to personal to answer while still maintaining an appropriate level of professionalism.  In order to divert these questions, keep focus on the task at hand as busy students are too involved in their work to ask questions about the teacher’s personal life.   

 

            Control Class Time:  This section outlines how to make productive use of time spent with students.  With new technologies available it is important that when using resources such as movies or video clips we focus on what is relevant to our current study.  Thompson outlines some important principles for classroom time management, including reducing distractions, raising student awareness, establishing routines, monitoring constantly, being organized and having a backup plan for lessons (179-180). 

 

            Manage Your Classroom:  Having a well managed classroom takes practice as well concise planning; it does not just happen on its own.  Some tips on creating a well managed classroom as illustrated by Thompson include a focus on good behaviour, clear expectations, policies and rules, as well as developing new polices in regards to grade level and school board expectations (p. 202-204).  It is important that once classroom rules are stated that teachers enforce these rules so students are not confused by expectations.

 

            Choose Appropriate Instructional Strategies and Resources:  In this section of the text, Thompson outlines a few instructional options teachers have, these include:

-reflective discussions: students make connections between what they have learned and their person experience

-active learning: students assume responsibility for their own learning through the use of activities

-interactive learning: use of social media as a platform for learning

-problem-based learning: students learn together through collaboration by solving realistic problems

-hands-on learning: students learn by manipulating objects or conducting experiments

(p. 261-267)

 

            Design Effective Instruction:  Effective instruction is done through careful planning.  This can be accomplished by making unit plans and daily plans to cover curriculum content.  Lesson plans should be adjusted to suit learner needs and teachers should always make a back-up plan in case students finish early.

 

            Deliver Engaging Instruction:  Classroom discussions must engage all students.  Often teachers assume the class is listening to them explain an assignment only to find out later they missed the fine points of instruction.  In order to ensure students are paying attention the teacher must learn how to maintain eye contact, learn the importance of pausing between questions so students have time to answer and genuinely be engaged in discussion themselves.  Engaging students in classroom discussion can be done in several ways (creativity helps), such as including toys to capture attention and using games to encourage learning (p. 314-318).

 

            Meet the Needs of All of Your Students:  It is important to realize that different learners possess different learning needs.  Teachers must create differentiated instruction to support all the students in their classroom.  Differentiated instruction means “creating many paths so that students of different abilities, interests, or learning needs experience appropriate ways to learn” (Thompson p. 332).  This can be done by creating and developing a rotation of different activities that include all student strengths and rotating students through these activities.  It is important to also stress quality of work over quantity of work accomplished.

            Assess Your Student’s Progress:  This part of the text outlines the importance of both summative assessments (at the end of the unit) and formative (data collection of lesson effectiveness) in evaluating student progress. 

 

            Level the Playing Field by Covering Basic Skills:  There are certain inequities that a teacher cannot change for a student, including socio economic income, family situation and living in areas that have high crime rates.  However, factors such as listening, speaking and writing skills can be helped through teacher guidance and supports.  By providing activities that enhance these skills and giving directions to encourage student’s critical thinking skills, teachers can help level the playing field for academic success.  Thompson gives specific examples of activities to help enhance each skill and outlines the importance of different learner needs for success.  The most important thing a new teacher can do to provide a positive educational experience for all students is to not assume that students already know basic skills they need to be successful.  Evaluate and listen to your students to learn areas in which they need to improve.

 

            Prevent Discipline Problems:  Thompson states “though educators know that harsh punishments will not transform troublemakers into well-behaved students, threats of punishment itself are still common methods of making children of all ages behave” (p. 427).  Thompson believes teachers should stay away from punishments as they only offer short term relief to classroom misconduct.  Instead teachers should focus students on the importance of self discipline and look for reasons why students are misbehaving in the first place, such as difficulty of work or distraction.  In order to minimize behavioural disruptions in the classroom setting teachers should model fair behaviour and stay consistent with classroom behaviour expectations.

 

            Manage Discipline Problems:  The last section of Thompson’s text explains how to manage discipline problems.  The main problems deemed unacceptable in any classroom include: threats, intimidation, substance abuse, violation of students rights, disrespect for authority, failure to complete work, unsafe behaviour, dishonesty, tardiness, lack of attendance to class, and violence (p. 450).  In order to deal with these issues present in many classrooms, Thompson suggests communication with parents or guardians, or referring the student to an administrator.  One last statement of advice is to not take student behaviour personally.  Thompson states “one of the hardest attitudes for many new teachers to adopt is a refusal to take their students’ misbehaviour and lack of motivation personally” (p. 460).  However, in order to thrive in as a new teacher we must learn not to take student actions personally.      

 

Critique:

            I found Julia Thompson’s text The First-Year Teacher’s Survival Guide extremely informative.  Not only does Thompson include step by step instructions and tips on how to survive as a new teacher, she also includes useful sheets (with permission to photo copy) for reflection and evaluation purposes.  Thompson goes even further to include several websites with free access to different resources to help with lesson planning and classroom management.  I found the vocabulary and tone of this book also very helpful as it was not too formal and easy to follow.  I would defiantly suggest the book to my peer’s as a great resource to reflect on when dealing with difficult first year teaching issues.

            Although I did enjoy the text and feel it is an excellent resource, I did experience one issue while reading it front to cover for the purposes of this particular assignment and that was its length.  The book itself is quite long (530 pages) and is the same size as a typical textbook.  I found that while reading it, I was almost overwhelmed with all the information and had a difficult time summarizing the main points.  For the purpose of my summary I used information I found useful or interesting but each section held hundreds of tips and tricks of the teaching profession.  This being said, I would recommend Thompson’s text as a reference guide for new teacher’s.  It is easy to follow the outlined sections through the “contents at a glance” page, so finding information on a particular issue or concern would be easy to find.  By using the text as a reference guide after experiencing a particular problem in the classroom, information irrelevant to a particular teaching situation is not presented all at once.  This would make the vast amount of useful information present in the text less overwhelming if viewed bit by bit when specific information was needed.

 

            Overall, I give this text an eight out of ten.  It was rich in first year teaching resources and also provided numerous organizational sheets for photocopying.  The text also included a DVD as an additional resource.  One additional note on this particular text is that it pertains information to first year teaching of kindergarten to senior four, so it is valuable for any new teacher.

 

Text Resources:

            The following are a list of website resources given in Thompson’s text.  These sites are only a few of the numerous sites listed.

 

Thompson, Julia. The First Year Teacher’s Survival Guide. 3rd Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2013. Print.

 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

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