Advice... The Finale

Here is the last installment of things I wish someone would have told me before I got started teaching.



5. Don't try to grade everything yourself. It's a good idea to look at a lot of student work early on to get an idea of their abilities. Also, you may feel some sort of responsibility: you're their teacher, so it's your job to grade their papers. Actually, as a teacher, it's your job to teach. Get as much help with grading papers as you can. Be selective about what you grade and what you hand off to a T.A., parent helper or personal loved one. Save your time for things that only you can do and let someone else take care of anything else. Then, you can take a glance through the scores when you get them back to see if your students are on track. In fact, having someone help you grade papers will help your students be more successful in your class. Timely feedback improves student achievement. If it takes you a week to hand back that vocabulary quiz, the students will already have forgotten what was on it and will no longer care that they've failed.



6. Classroom Management is as important as instruction. Upon leaving a teacher preparation program, your mind is no doubt filled with activities and instructional strategies. You know all about learning styles and English language learners. You have plans for using what you know to turn your curriculum into diverse, engaging, and meaningful instruction. And that you should. But a heterogeneous group activity is only as successful as the group members. You may offer some profound wisdom and insight into your content area, but if your classroom is too loud for the student to hear you, it won't do them any good. Start from day one, minute one working to get and keep control of your classroom. Require students to be on task and non-disruptive. Once it becomes routine, you can slowly start to bring in more dynamic instructional strategies. Remember to require the same good behavior of your student working in partners as when listening to lecture, and soon you'll be ready to move on to large groups and learning stations.



7. Test the technology ahead of time. You think you know how to use a DVD player, but what do you do if the disc won't play, and the TV is showing a message in a foreign language? While this may be unavoidable, you don't have to let it happen while your students are watching. When you first get access to your classroom, check out all the technology to make sure it works and that you know how to use it. Then, test it again the morning before you actually intend to use it. Test it every time. Even if the VCR worked just fine last week, it may not work today. Some darling child may have crossed the cables. Maybe this particular video doesn't agree with the player. Or the gremlins may have got to it. If you check it out ahead of time, you may be able to fix it, or if not, revert to plan B.