Six Assumptions Teachers Make

We all make assumptions about things our students know and don't know. Sometimes these assumptions are correct, and present no problems. Often, however, those assumptions are incorrect and throw off our carefully planned lessons. Today's post is about some of those assumptions, and ways we can slow down and plan differently to help our students and ourselves succeed.

We assume that our students know...

1. How to behave in class.  No matter what age we are teaching, we tend to assume that our students know how to behave. When students fail to meet behavior expectations, more often than not we respond by sending them out of the room or assigning consequences. While consequences are important, we need to make sure our expectations for behavior are clear and consistently implemented in order to set our students up for success. Taking the time to reteach those expectations after any school breaks, or if things seem to be getting generally out of hand, will ultimately save time in the long run by minimizing disruptive behavior. Additionally, if the expectations you set at the beginning of the year do not seem to be working, you can always change them, as long as you make it clear to the students what changes have been made.
2. How to take notes.  Children are not born with the ability to take organized notes. This is a skill that is taught to them. No matter how old your students are, assume that they do not know how to take notes, and teach them that skill. I used interactive notebooks in my classroom, and would project exactly what and how the students needed to copy the notes into those notebooks. I taught 6th grade, so there was very little leeway given to my students about how they were to take notes. This worked very well for my classroom. If you teach older students, they might have a method that works especially well for them. If that is the case, allow those students to keep doing what they're doing. However, this will not be true for all of your students, so make sure you set up a method that works for you and teach that to your classes.
3. How to study.  Because students tend to take disorganized notes, they do not know how to use those notes for future studying. Using lessons to help the students practice using their notes to study is a great use of time. Some ways to set the lesson up could include letting students use their notes to play a game with a partner such as Battleship, Flash Card Flip, Flash Card Match, I Can..., or Task Card Pass. Additionally, you could set up a notes scavenger hunt by creating a crossword puzzle that uses the terms from notes and the definitions as clues. 
4. How to manage their time.  Many teachers, especially elementary teachers, think that by giving homework they are teaching students time management skills. This is another unfortunate assumption. What ends up happening is the parent's ability to manage their time wisely is tested instead. We can teach students time management skills in a better way by timing activities in our classroom and allowing students to see the timer we are using. Timers can be used for everything from bell ringers, to independent practice time, to bathroom use (if you are a teacher that takes the entire class to the restroom at various times). If students are reading a long passage or solving multiple problems, we can help them by writing on the board where they should be at different time intervals. For example, "In 5 minutes, you should have finished the first paragraph," or "In 6 minutes, you should have completed the first three problems."
5. How to read on grade level.  Depending on the type of school district you are teaching in, you might have anywhere from 5%-60% of your students reading well below grade level. No matter what subject you teach, we are all reading teachers. Every subject requires students to read, even if it is only the directions. By making sure you are supporting what the ELA teachers are doing in their classrooms, you are also supporting your students and yourself in your own classroom. This support can be as simple as rewriting a text to match the student's reading level, or if the majority of your students struggle, you can close read passages together.
6. How to solve basic math problems.  Students often enter their middle school years with a poor conceptual understanding of basic mathematical operations such as subtraction, division, and multiplication. This causes many other issues later on, as one might expect. By using manipulatives and illustrations to make the math more concrete, students begin to understand the operations better. While many of us were not taught using manipulatives, or maybe even how to use them in our classrooms, it is worth the time needed to explore them for ourselves and the time needed to allow our students to use them in class. It is a much better use of our time than spending weeks and weeks trying to remediate and reteach concepts later in the year.
7. How to think about the text or problem being presented to them.  Again, this is a skill that is learned as we grow up, which means that as teachers, it is our responsibility to teach it to our students. We can do this by coaching students to ask themselves questions as they are working on their independent practice. For math, those questions might look like: 1. What information do I know? 2. What am I being asked to find? 3. What operations can I use to solve this problem? For any class that requires reading comprehension, those questions might look like: 1. What is the author telling me here? 2. Are there any hard or important words? 3. What does the author want me to understand? [For literature: 4. How does the author play with language to add to meaning?]

What assumptions have you made that you later realized were incorrect? How did you go about correcting those assumptions? Share in the comments below!

Before the First Day of School

As the school year is winding down, now is the time for reflection and self-evaluation. What worked this year? What didn't? What changes would you like to make in your classroom for next year?

If you are about to enter the classroom for the first time, now is the time to start thinking about how you want to set up your room. Looking to other teachers is the best way to figure out what will work and what won't. Talk to veteran teachers about your plan and listen to their feedback. Sometimes our ideas don't actually pan out very well in practice, and this is one of those times where learning from someone else's mistakes is going to make your life much easier.

I've created a checklist to help you get organized and hopefully help reduce stress and feeling overwhelmed by what you need to do before the students walk in on that first day of school.

What are some things you would like to try next year?

What are some things you did this year that worked well for you?

Share in the comments below!

The Anatomy of a Lesson

The anatomy of a lesson has the same basic structure whether you're teaching a block schedule or a traditional schedule. Today we are going to break down the lesson into it's key components.

Lesson Planning
Planning is crucial for both types of schedules. If you have a limited time with the students, every minute must be used efficiently and purposefully. Everything from passing out materials to getting into groups must have a procedure attached to it to avoid wasted time. If you have more time with students, you still need to make sure you are using your time efficiently. If you are switching from one type of schedule to another, I highly recommend creating lesson plans that are overly detailed until you become comfortable with the new setup. Include every activity, your estimated time for each activity, how you will transition from one thing to another, and questions you plan on asking your students as well as questions you anticipate your students asking you. Once you begin to get a feel for how long everything takes, you can always scale back on your lesson plans, but it is always better to be over-prepared than under-prepared.

Set the Timer
Whether you're teaching a block schedule or a traditional (50-60 minute) class, time management is key. This is often an area where novice teachers struggle the most, but even those of us who have been in the classroom for years still have issues with timing now and again. While teaching block might seem wonderful at first (90 whole minutes to teach! They're going to learn all the things!), often teachers struggle to fill that time. They tend to allow students more down time than a teacher in a 50 minute class would, and lose out on the benefit of having the students in their classroom longer. One of the easiest things to do is time everything from the bell ringer/do now/warm-up to the instructional portion of class to independent practice to the exit ticket/closure. This will not only help your students learn how to manage their own time while working on problems, but also help keep you honest and on track. Additionally, our students have a limited attention span (about 1 minute per year of life on this planet), and changing activities frequently helps keep students engaged. Some teachers think that when they change activities it has to be something big and dramatic, but often something simple like a quick think-pair-share moment is enough.

Variety
Scheduled and structured movement around the room can be a useful way to keep the classroom moving. You can set up Math Stations, a Gallery Walk, or simply have the students change seats to take notes. Block schedules also allow for a more thorough release of responsibility to students. There is time for Direct Instruction (I do), Group Practice (We do), then Independent Practice (You do). While traditional class periods allow for all of these, teachers often have to sacrifice the amount of time spent during group practice or independent practice due to time constraints.

Transitions
All transitions from one activity to another need to be smooth, logical, and clear to students, otherwise you will lose some of them along the way. If students need to put materials away before the next activity can begin, or get materials out, assign that job to a few students. Do not give important information to students during this time. Instead, make sure that students are doing what they need to do (moving desks, passing materials forward, etc.) in order to get ready for the next thing.

Review and Closure
It is imperative that teachers leave some time at the end of class for a review of the topics or skills learned in class. This helps students bring things together in their own mind and to conceptualize what has been taught. Closure activities can be questions asked by the teacher, a think-pair-share activity, or exit tickets. Exit tickets are an excellent way to check for understanding at the end of the lesson, and can be used as a formative assessment for the lesson.

All of these are important components of any good lesson. The trick to make it a great lesson is consistency and practice. If you feel like you are struggling with any of these, observe another teacher and take notes on what they do. Even if they don't teach your grade level or your content area, you can always learn from other teachers. Best practices are best practices no matter the subject.

What is the anatomy of your lessons?