Classroom Management Archives - The Present Teacher

Categories: Classroom Management, First Year Teacher, New Teachers

How to Build a Positive Classroom Community as a First Year Teacher

I know that trying to build a positive classroom community as a first year teacher can be tough. You’re doing everything the experts say, but your students are still arguing with each other and not getting along for other teachers.

If this is you, you’re not alone. Building a positive classroom community as a first year teacher can feel overwhelming when you pair it with the other million tasks teachers are required to do. But here’s the thing, it doesn’t have to be! What if building a positive classroom community was so simple that it was built into your day on autopilot without you having to think about it?

Too good to be true? Well not with these 5 strategies. Today I am going to show you 5 steps you need to take today in order to build a positive classroom community as a first year teacher. So grab that coffee and let’s start building the strongest community in the school!

Listen to the podcast:

How to Build a Positive Classroom Community as a First Year Teacher

Helena (00:00): Does it feel like your students are always fighting and they aren’t behaving for other teachers? No matter what you do, they always need you to help solve a problem. What if I told you that your students are always helping each other and taking each other, taking care of each other, and your classroom was just the most positive classroom in the school? But Helena, how do I get there? Is that class a thing? Is that a real thing? Yes, it is. I’m here to show you how. So stick around because I’m going to talk about how you can achieve just that. Hey, teacher bestie. My name’s Helena and I’m the creator, the Present Teacher podcast. I’m a first year teacher coach, and in this podcast you are gonna learn everything from simple actual classroom management, social emotional learning, and teacher wellness strategies. You know that impact you wanna make in the classroom. We’re gonna make it happen here. (00:56) Step number one, establish rules and boundaries early on. Now, without going too deep into this, because I did in a previous episode, but when you do this at the beginning of the year or now, you are going to want to have your students create rules with you. Help them buy in by having them sign or come up with the rules. And this will help create ownership of their learning and help them stay accountable and remind them, Hey, remember we all agree that this would be rule number three, and the expectation is blank. So that is step number one. Step number two, foster those positive relationships. Have you ever walked into a place and you can just tell that the moon and the vibe is just happy and calm? Well, the same goes for your classroom. You can tell the mood in your classroom just based on how you interact with your students. (01:51) So let’s make sure it’s a good vibe. You might be wondering, how do I do that? Well, here’s a couple ways to achieve that. The first one being get to know your students one-on-one, ask or compliment them in the morning. I love to greet my kids at the door because it gives me that visual cue that I can see. Are they having a a good day? Is their morning okay? Are they having a hard morning? Are they going to need some extra love? The second thing is have a meal with them. I love my quiet time as an introverted teacher. However, on Fridays I love to pick four or five depending, you know, the size of your class. But I like to pick a few students and have a meal with them and ask them about their family. Ask them about their dog, learn about their interests. (02:38) Because what happens is, is when you take time to learn about your kids and you remember those things and you bring it up later, they just, oh my gosh, they just explode that you care enough about ’em to know the little things. So trust me and that, and it’ll make you fall in love with them even more. But take some time to have a meal with them and ask those questions, show that you care and take interest in their personal life. This year I really made an attempt to go to the baseball games, to go to the soccer games, to go to the ballet because it’s important for my kids to know that I have their back and I’m there for them. So this is a great way to foster those positive relationships. And I’ve said this before, a student won’t learn from a teacher they don’t like. (03:31) And I’m not saying you’re going to be able to reach every kid and not every kid’s gonna like you, and that’s okay, but your kids are gonna learn to love you if you tell them more about you. I know that’s not what you probably thought I was going to say, but talk about your own interests. I don’t know why, but my first year, I think there was like a veteran told me that, you know, you shouldn’t say anything about your life to your kids. Now, I’m not saying tell ’em about all your problems and everything personal, but I like to share about my doc’s, Kohan Kenai from Brother Bear. My kids love that they love asking me and they call, call them my my sons like, share about your personal life because kids will remember you and learn to like you if you have something in common. (04:20) The same goes for this podcast. If I never told you anything personal about myself or anything of my like or interests, you wouldn’t be listening to me because we would have nothing in common. So there’s that. Step number three, practice active listening. So you’re gonna wanna mono what this looks like and sh show what it looks like and sounds like. And the biggest thing that I have made myself do is to preach what I say and do the same. So I talk about active listening as a respecting another person and showing that you are hearing them and listening to the words they have to say and you are holding space for them and you are actively presently in the moment listening to them. So we talk about what body languages looks like, what our minds doing, what our voices are doing. Um, you can do a visual poster, but this is something I cover at the very beginning of class. (05:21) If you haven’t done this yet, that’s okay, we can practice now, but we come up with a saying like, track the speaker still hands listening, ears, voices off sitting, still do your best caring heart. Obviously I have that memorized, but we go over it almost every single time at carpet time. And then I point out kids that are actively listening. And then I model by doing it when my kids are talking to me now with my kids, because you know I love them. They come up to me and they have something really exciting to say, but I have an adult slash teacher thing to do and I can’t give them my my full attention. I will tell them so and so, I would love to listen to you right now, however I need to finish this task, then I would love to actively listen to you. (06:07) And they, they’ve learned to wait. And then after I’m done, I turn my body, I practice what I preach, I turn my body, I cross my hands and I show them that I’m listening. And your kids will respect you for doing that. It’s that mutual respect. And again, I like to point out other students who are practicing actively listening to their friends when the rest of us need a couple reminders. So if you have a moment where your kids are really chatty at the carpet, I might say, oh, I love how so-and-so is actively listening by sitting crisscross applesauce. I love how so-and-so is actively listening by tracking the speaker still hands, going through the whole poster activity you did earlier and having it up somewhere helps but model what you preach and point out people who are doing a great job. And if you’re using the super improver wall like I am, then this is a great time for a sticker. (07:01) But beside the point, so practice active listening. Step number four, create a safe space for sharing and expressing emotions. I don’t want students, and I’m pretty sure you’re the same way, because we’re, we think a lot alike, but I don’t want students to feel like there are any silly questions. All thoughts, opinions and emotions are valid. And I may not agree with you, but I do respect you enough to listen, hold space and validate. So model what that looks like. How can I express this? You can talk about what does that look like, sound like when you’re list sharing and expressing your emotions. How can I express that I’m mad instead of throwing something across the floor, I can take a calming breath and say, I’m mad right now. How can I listen to others to make them feel validated? Kids wanna help each other, but sometimes they just don’t know how. (08:02) And you have to model that. What does that look like and sound like You can do this during circle time, morning meeting, afternoon meeting. You can talk about a friend who’s upset and what do I do as good friend to show that I see them, I hear them and I wanna validate their feelings. You could, you know, go through the thank you because the last thing I would want you to do is, I’m sorry you’re feeling that way. What can I do to make it better? All those are super important. Your kids wanna help, they wanna thrive, they wanna grow. Modeling that for each other is huge. Step number five, collaborate and teamwork. So I have a fun story about this. So during the first week of school, I noticed that these kids in particular had a hard time with collaborating and teamwork. So what I did is we played the cup game. (09:00) So the cup game isn’t the cup song from my childhood. I got magic from the long way around. I know I’ll let her sing it, but I love that song. Anyways, it’s not that one, it’s cup stacking. So I separated my class two teams and I had them sit, you know, in their groups. And when I said go, they had to stack the highest tower of cups on top of each other. What would happen was whenever my kids accidentally knocked over the Tower of Cups, they would start yelling at each other and getting angry and not regulating their emotions. What would happen was because they were being not the nicest friend to each other, the cops would keep falling down. So after we went through this exercise, once I, you know, there were some tears, it was a little frustrating, but I had everyone sit down and calm down and I just had my kids let my kids talk. (09:57) What did you notice about the cup game? What did you notice about your teammates? How did they make you feel? What did you like? What did you didn’t like? What did you notice about the cups whenever your teammates were doing that and light bulbs, absolute light bulbs, they were like, you know what, I’ll never forget one of my little boys. He’s like, I dropped the tower, or the tower fell because so-and-so was yelling at me and didn’t make me feel good. So I accidentally bumped the other cups and we talked about how we expanded on how how we treat each other is how our cups are and our cups represent our emotions and how our teammates are are working together. When we work well as a team, our shower is super high. We’re steady as a team, we’re praising each other, we’re supporting each other and it’s tall. (10:47) But when we are tearing each other down and getting mad and frustrated and taking it on each other, the cups fall. And this was huge, huge. And so we did it a second time. We talked about strategy and what they could do next time and what they wanted to do better. And so we did it a second time and those towers were so much taller and it was so much more positive in the class. So now I love to go back every once in a while and remind them of the cup game. And we play the cup game whenever we kind of forget what good teamwork and collaboration means because otherwise our cups are falling. So my point is, it’s important to model what good teamwork looks like. What does it sound like? Um, how can we be good supportive team member so our cups are tall and high and not falling? (11:41) How can we make sure that our team is the best cup stacker in the class? Thank you so much for listening. I hope you found this helpful and I’m so excited to hear about you implementing the strategies you learned from this week’s episode. Remember, I am always here from you for you cheering you on. I am your biggest fan. I would love if you could tag me and show me that you are listening to this podcast by taking a screenshot and either sending it to me or adding it to your stories and tagging me at the present teacher on Instagram. I love seeing all the amazing educators around the world listening in. Remember that we are stronger together. Take care, teacher bestie. Until next week, love Helen. (12:28) Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode. I hope that you were able to take away some value that will help you thrive inside and outta the classroom. It would mean the world to me. If you could take five seconds right now and leave a review on this podcast, and if you found this podcast especially helpful, make sure to take a screenshot of this episode right now and tag me on your social school. Let me know you’re listening. As always, remember that we are stronger together with all the love in the world. Helena aka, the present teacher. See you next time. Teacher bestie.

Establish Rules and Boundaries Early On

The first step you need to take to build a positive classroom community as a first year teacher is to establish your rules and boundaries early on. As I talked about in a previous episode, in order for students to excel they need to know what’s expected of them.

Establishing rules and boundaries from the start is key for setting expectations of behavior. Make sure your rules are clear, concise and easy to follow. Involve your students in the process of creating these rules – they will be more engaged, motivated and responsible if they have a say. You should also explain the consequences for breaking rules so that your students know what will happen if they do not comply with them.

Some ways to implement this is to have your students create the rules with you, vote on them, and have them sign the rules. This will allow buy in and will allow your students to feel seen and heard. Overall this is a very important step to build a positive classroom community as a first year teacher.

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Foster Positive Relationships With Your Students

The second step to build a positive classroom community as a first year teacher is to foster a positive relationship with your students. As I mentioned in this episode of the Present Teacher Podcast, students won’t learn from a teacher they don’t like.

The same goes for building a positive classroom community, it’s hard to have a positive classroom community when the students don’t get along with the teacher. Getting to know your students beyond the curriculum can help you create a nurturing classroom community. Spend one-on-one time with each student to learn about their interests, goals and home life.

When you show your students that you care for their physical, mental and emotional well-being through positive reinforcement they will learn to love not only you but the classroom community as well.

One way to achieve this is do check-ins, leave positive notes, send positive notes home, and compliment your students. Showing that you are available and receptive to talking positively strengthens trust between yourself and your students. Which makes this step essential if you want to build a positive classroom community as a first year teacher.

Show Respect by Practicing Active Listening Skills

The third step to build a positive classroom community as a first year teacher is to practice active listening. Now let’s be honest, active listening is a skill that is not only difficult for students to master, but for students as well. That’s why it’s so important to practice what you preach and model active listening when your students are talking to you.

Whenever you engage with your students it is important to practice your active listening skills. Whether in small group or one-on-one settings, always keep eye contact and be attentive to details and student emotions. Ask open-ended questions and let the student talk without interruption; frequently check for understanding and restate information shared by the student to confirm understanding. Your recognition of their perspectives will help them feel heard, seen, respected and valued.

You can also have your class practice active listening and redirect them when they are not. Make sure to model what this looks like and sounds like. You can even pause instruction when someone is talking over a friends and say:

“I’m so sorry to interrupt you (insert name), but I see two students who are not practicing actively listening. Let’s wait until they show us that they are ready to actively listen.”

This is a great skill for not only adults but students as well and it’s a great next step to build a positive classroom community as a first year teacher.

Create a Safe Haven for Sharing and Expressing Feelings

The fourth step to build a positive classroom community as a first year teacher is to create a safe space to share feelings and expressing them. Students will not help build a positive classroom environment if they feel like their feelings will not be validated. That’s why it’s so important to make sure all feelings and thoughts are validated in the classroom.

Allowing students to share and express their feelings in a safe and respectful environment is essential for creating a positive classroom community. As teachers, it’s our job to create an atmosphere that is open and welcoming to all types of perspectives. However, it’s also important to establish ground rules and expectations with your students that emphasize respect at all times, so they feel comfortable speaking openly without feeling judged.

It’s important to encourage them to be flexible, creative, tolerant and compassionate with one another. One way to achieve this is to do a bucket filler lesson where you talk about bucket filling and bucket dipping. We also talk about inside versus outside voices and what to say to comfort a friend. If you want more support in teaching these kinds of lessons check out these resources.

All in all, creating a safe space for students to feel seen, heard and validated is essential if you want to build a positive classroom community as a first year teacher.

Create Opportunities for Collaboration and Teamwork

The final step to build a positive classroom community as a first year teacher is to create opportunities to collaborate and teamwork. When you allow students to collaborate you are allowing them to learn important interpersonal skills as well as the ability to talk more in a structured way. So if you have a chatty class you definitely want to be doing this!

Creating opportunities for students to collaborate and work together is a great way to foster a positive classroom community. Through team-based activities, students will learn how to better communicate and rely on one another, while also getting the chance to get to know each other in an educational setting.

You can assign tasks and projects that require students to work with others or divide the class into smaller groups and have them come up with creative solutions to different problems. Another great way is to have students “teach” each other important points as you teach. This will encourage responsibility, critical thinking, and problem solving skills all while building relationships between your students. And what better way to build a positive classroom community as a first year teacher.

Make this your best year yet with the Ultimate First Year Teacher Checklist!

Overall

In summary, in order to build a positive classroom community as a first year teacher you need the following steps:

Establish Rules and Boundaries Early On
Foster Positive Relationships With Your Students
Show Respect by Practicing Active Listening Skills
Create a Safe Haven for Sharing and Expressing Feelings
And Finally to Create Opportunities for Collaboration and Teamwork

All of these are a great way to build a classroom community so that you and your students will enjoy coming to school and have a community so strong it will feel like a family.

Which strategy are you going to incorporate to build a positive classroom community? I would love to hear your thoughts!

[jetpack-related-posts]

Categories: First Year Teacher, New Teachers

15 First-Year Teacher Tips From 15 Experienced Teachers

Have you ever wondered if you could go into the future what first year teacher tip you would give yourself 5 years into the future? Perhaps are you a new teacher and part of you wants to go down the hallway and ask your coworkers what mistakes they made their first couple years of teaching.

Maybe you’re an experienced teacher and part of you is wondering what mistakes you made your first couple years of teaching and if you could go back in time, what advice would you give yourself from 5, 10, 15 years ago?

Well if you were asking yourself any of these questions, I got you covered because I asked over 15 experienced teachers around the world what first year teacher tip they would give themselves if they could go back in time.

So grab a cup of coffee and let’s start chatting with these amazing educators from around the world.

P.S. if you want to learn more from these educators, reserve your seat at the FREE Thriving Teacher Summit happening from March 23rd to the 25th. Make sure to grab it now before the spots fill up!

Listen to the podcast:

15 First Year Teacher Tips From Experienced Teachers From Around the World

Helena (00:00): Have you ever wondered what mistakes you might be making? Or better yet, are you a new teacher And part of you wants to go down the hallway and ask your coworkers what mistakes they made their first couple years of teaching, or maybe you’re an experienced teacher and part of you is wondering what mistakes you made your first couple years of teaching and if you could go back in time, what advice would you give yourself from 5, 10, 15 years ago? Well, if you were wondering any of these questions, I got you covered because I got together with 13 amazingly experienced teachers from around the world and talked about what advice they would give first year teacher them if they could go back in time. So make sure to stick around and listen to the advice of these 13 educators and see if you are making any of these mistakes. Also, there is a bonus tip at the end making War 14 educators and a special invitation. So make sure to stay tuned because you won’t wanna miss this. Hey teacher bestie. My name’s Helena and I’m the creator of the Present Teacher Podcast. I’m a first year teacher coach and in this podcast you are gonna learn everything from simple actual classroom management, socialist learning, and teacher wellness strategies, you know that impact you wanna make in the classroom. We’re gonna make it happen here. (01:24) Okay, I am super excited for this podcast episode because I got to speak with 13 amazing experienced teachers from around the world and I was genuinely curious for myself what mistakes did these teachers make so much so that they would go back in time and tell first year them some piece of ad of advice and what can we learn from that? So the first person I spoke to was Rebecca Poe. Rebecca is an amazing educator that helps other educators incorporate best practices in the special education world. And here’s what she had to say as far as advice that she would give her first year teacher’s health, Rebekah Poe (02:08): My number one tip for new teachers is not to be afraid to ask questions. As a new teacher, you are not expected to know everything, however you are expected to want to learn. So make sure that you’re asking those questions for the answers that you’re not quite sure of that will show initiative on your part. Helena (02:28): Yes, I love this piece of advice. It is so easy for you to just get in your own mind and to feel even guilty for asking those questions, but this is a great reminder that you need to ask those questions because that’s how you’re gonna learn. We don’t tell our students that they shouldn’t be asking questions and learning. If anything, that’s what we wanna see happen. So we need to give that grace to ourselves and be happy and even proud to ask questions. And yet on the other hand it can be so hard to figure out who to listen to and who not to. As a new teacher you might be getting a lot of information or you might be needing to ask more questions either way. It’s super important to take some time and reflect on the information you are getting and figure out does it align with you and is it authentic to you and who you wanna be as a teacher? And this really reminds me of this conversation I had with Rainy Barton. Rainy is a time strategist guru, she’s all about saving time using productivity hacks and she has a little more to say about this. Rainy Barton (03:40): If I could go back in time and tell myself one thing as a first year teacher, it would be to really monitor where I’m getting ideas for curriculum and resources and who I’m listening to. Because I feel like as a first year teacher, everyone is trying to give you information and it’s very hard to determine what’s actually good, what’s actually bad. So like I encourage you to do your own research, like actually figure out like who you trust in the community to give you good curriculum ideas and like help guide you on your teaching journey and who not really to listen to that just likes to hear themselves talk. So like do research, go on Google, find blogs of people that you like, find other T P T people that have like YouTube channels and all this stuff. Basically just really take the time to figure out like what’s good and what’s trash because you’re gonna get so much information thrown at you in your first year of teaching that it’s really important to like weed out the good from the bad. So if anything, just be really considerate into what you allow in your brain in that first year as a teacher. Helena (04:42): So true. And when you first start out it can be really hard to figure out is this person aligned with me? Does this resonate with me? Is this a teacher that I wanna invest in or mentor? I wanna follow. And I would ask yourself when you’re considering this, do I like this person and what they represent? What does their life look like? And does that, is that how I want mine to look like? Do they align with my values and who I am authentically or is it just some information I found that is relevant right now and might help me but down the road maybe it doesn’t feel right as I present it to my kids, it doesn’t feel like it’s authentic to me. So definitely taking that into consideration as you find a mentor or teachers online to help support you is really important. (05:39) I can speak from experience, you are going to find an amazing group of educators on the online world. It is possible and there are so many great ones out there, it’s all about finding the ones though that resonate with you and finding the ones that are authentic to you. On the flip side, it is super important to focus on just one thing at a time and not to try to do a million things at once. In the business world they call this shiny object syndrome where you see something new and you try to tackle a million things at once. And by putting your energy on so many different things, you actually tend to get hardly anything done. And that is something that Shametria from the rowdy math teacher really talks about. She goes into depth about how if she could go back, she will tell first year teacher her all about focusing on the one thing I’m becoming a pro at before you move on to the next Shametria Routt (06:40): One tip I wish that I would’ve gotten as a first year teacher is to not try and do all the things. When you’re a first year teacher, there are so many ideas and strategies and things that you wanna do in a classroom. Things that you see on Pinterest or things that other people are talking about maybe in Facebook groups or the things that you see on Instagram. And it’s hard not to want to, you know, change everything that you’re doing to try something new, especially when you’re struggling in a certain area. But I encourage you to make changes just one at a time. That gives you time to really focus in on a change that you wanna make and make something that’s gonna be worthwhile and that also gives you time to really see if the change is going to be beneficial for you and your students. (07:27) I know for me in my first year, uh, of course I had so many ideas for things I wanted to do, thinking about going into the second year, um, that I was overwhelmed with uh, how to spend my summer, but I decided that I would really focus on just one area. Um, math was going really well for me. Math is my thing. So I decided that science was the area I wanted to improve in. And so I spent the summer looking for ways to improve in science and and coming up with new and engaging science activities for my students. And I feel like that really paid off because my science program the next year was amazing. So I encourage you to just make one change at a time. You’ve got plenty of time for more. Helena (08:08): I love how Shamiro says focus on the one thing, make the one thing the main thing and focus on that until it becomes automatic. Until you can do it without thinking about it. [inaudible] it was science. So maybe take some time to ask yourself what is an area I would like to improve on this year instead of trying to tackle everything and be an amazing teacher from the get-go. It’s an adventure, it’s not a destination. So maybe one thing you wanna work on is classroom management and community. I know that you probably didn’t have a lot of experience as far as prep school and training in classroom community and classroom management and that’s where I spoke to Angel Honts and she is an educator who empowers other teachers to focus on classroom community and classroom management. So this is what she had to say. As far as her first year teacher tip, Angel Honts (09:08): The advice I would give myself is a first year teacher is all about connections. Community consistency and clarity. Take time to get to know your students, let them get to know you. Build community, make that a priority. Be consistent with your clear expectations because kids thrive on structure. Show them you care. Give, have high expectations with high support. Helena (09:37): I love how Angel talked about that level of support in community and we sometimes forget. It’s easy to forget when you’re going through the day-to-day tasks about why you’re really here. And if I know you like I think I do, then I know you’re here to make an impact. You’re here to connect with those kids and you are here to make a change. And sometimes along the way you can lose part of that. And that reminds me of this conversation I had with Catie Cupples. She has been on here before, I’ve loved Katie and she talks more about the importance of community with this amazing quote. Caitie Cupples (10:21): Hey this is Catie from Catie Cupple’s teaching and if I could go back in time to talk to first year teacher me, there are a lot of things I’d wanna say but one thing I would definitely tell myself is to remember that quote from Maya Angelo and know that my students would forget what I said, they’ll forget what we did but they would never forget how I made them feel. I’d tell myself that it’s okay to put relationships first, to prioritize my classroom community and to nurture my students in my own emotional wellbeing. Even if it meant I needed to throw the lesson plan out the window, I would tell myself to be patient and to remember that every day I’m growing an everyday coming closer to the teacher I’ve always wanted to be. Helena (10:58): Wow. What I love about what Katie had to say was how she focused it back onto her kids. Your kids are not gonna remember that lesson plan. They’re not gonna remember you staying late, they’re not gonna remember all these amazing activities that you stayed up past midnight prepping. They are gonna remember how you made them feel. And I know you are in this battle right now of trying to balance getting everything done. You’re trying to have the Pinterest perfect classroom, get ahead, stay afloat, all the while trying to make your kids feel seen, heard and understood. And I can really feel the message inside of what Katie has to say, which is focus on your kids, leave the rest even if that means throwing stuff to the side. And this is a perfect segue to another conversation I had with Emily Eggers from Teach From the Couch and she talks about the importance of focusing on the things that matter and leaving the things that don’t. Emily Eggers (11:59): Hey there, this is Emily Eggers from Teaching from the Couch. And one piece of advice that I would give to first year teacher me is that showing up at the crack of dawn and leaving after it’s dark is not a sign of dedication or of your worth as a teacher. It is the early signs of burnout. And as a teacher we need to set boundaries, uh, with our time and make sure that we are putting systems in place that will help us be efficient with our time. So it is not impressive to your admin that you are staying late or getting there early and doing tons of work and spending all your time in the building. It’s just showing them that you are willing to stretch those boundaries and they may take advantage of that later on. So make sure you put those boundaries in place and set up systems for yourself so that you can um, be more efficient with your time and not spend all your time at school. Helena (12:58): One of the hardest lessons to learn is that you don’t have to stay late and stretch your boundaries in order to be a good teacher. You might be looking around wondering what’s the secret? What do you not know that gets everyone out the door on time? Or you might not realize that there is another way and you don’t have to spend hours and hours after work to get the things done. Just like Emily said, it’s important to create those systems and put them in place so that you can have the boundaries to thrive inside this profession for years and years to come. And one system I highly recommend that you focus on is grading. If you are like many other teachers I’ve talking to, I’ve spoke to, maybe you have trouble figuring out what to grade. Well Lisa Smith from Lisa Smith teaches nine to 12. She is a literacy teacher and she helps literacy teachers thrive inside their classroom. And she talks about some advice she has when it comes to grading things. Lisa Smith (14:08): If I were to go back and give myself advice after 15 years of teaching in the beginning it would be actually two pieces of advice. One, you don’t have to grade everything as a high school English teacher. Um, there’s so much that can be marked and really what is the best use of your time and the best feedback to give students And that’s not, uh, long comments and editing on all of their assignments. So try and streamline looking over something, peer reviews, um, even just a quick check mark sometimes is enough just as a check-in. And then the other is before you leave on Friday, have a plan for Monday, do your photocopying, upload whatever to your learning management system. And this to me saves so much anxiety on Sunday nights that I know when I leave on Friday, I don’t have to think about the week until I get to school on Monday. Um, so that allows me to sort of differentiate my time between school and personal life and trying to build in that balance is really important, particularly when you’re learning everything else. Um, being new to a school, new to a subject, new to teaching and just have grace with yourself, you’ll be fine. Continue along. Use the supports that are available to you. Helena (15:25): It is so important to figure out the right way and what things to grade, but it’s also important to set yourself up for success for the upcoming week. And one way to do that is to get organized digitally. I cannot tell you how much time you’re gonna save if you organize your files and resources now so you can use ’em for years and years to come. And that’s where Lisa from Lisa M c h talks about the importance of organizing your files now so you can save time and stress later. Lisa McHargue (16:01): Oh my gosh, if I could go back in time, I would tell first year teacher Lisa to organize her stuff better because my first year of teaching there was so much to do and I thought I was being so smart with how I was organizing my lesson plans, like saving them um, what I was naming my files and everything. Spoiler alert, , I was not being smart. So year too comes around and I cannot figure out like my lesson plans are a nightmare. I can’t figure out where my files are. Like it was just awful. And I, I was and I, I was a really organized person before I started teaching but nothing prepared me for the amount of digital files and emails I was gonna have. And this was back in like 2011. So you know, as time went on there were just more and more. Luckily I figured it out real quick and fast forward about seven years into teaching, I had a flawless for me system , which is probably why I spend most of my time now helping people get digitally organized. So first year teacher Lisa, put some thought into what you’re gonna name your files and how you’re gonna save them cuz it’s gonna save you a lot of time down the road. Helena (17:22): Lisa is an absolute expert when it comes to organizing. Trust me, this is something you wanna tackle now and not five, six years down the road. Learn from experience, trust me. Definitely go check her out. Which brings me to my next thing. We are about halfway through this podcast episode so if you resignated with any of these teachers, first off I would really appreciate if you would go onto their Instagram right now and go follow them because they are amazing people and I am so excited for you to connect with them. I will make sure to put their socials down below so you can go connect, go say hi and let ’em know that you came from the Present Teacher podcast and let him know that you listen to their advice. I know it would absolutely make their day. Speaking of organizing items apart from digital files, there’s something else you might wanna consider when it comes to organizing and I bet it’s not what you’re thinking, it’s your supplies. I speak with Amy Rodman and she is a art teacher who inspires educators to incorporate more creativity in the classroom for themselves and their students. And Amy has a little bit of a history when it comes to organizing supplies and she shares her tip on how to keep your class organized so that way you have systems and procedures in place for you and your students. Amy Roadman (18:54): Hi, this is Amy Roadman from Igniting Creativity. My tip to you as an art teacher who had a ton of supplies that were constantly messy all over my room until I really learned a system of organization is to find a way to organize that allows your students to manage it for you. Because at first I thought I had to do everything myself and every horizontal space was covered. It was just always a mess. I had to get things out for them because they didn’t know where to find things and it took a lot of time and sometimes you don’t feel like you have the time but believe me it will save so much time in the end. So my structure, I actually learned it from a science teacher friend who had similar cabinets. ASME, was to label things with the red light, green light system. (19:42) My labels were green. If it meant go for it. These supplies are for you to use at any time without asking, but it only stays a green label if you are using them properly and you’re putting them away whenever you’re done. Yellow meant please ask because sometimes they were messier, we didn’t have time for those supplies. The answer was usually yes but they just knew to ask first and then red meant to stop. These are only for special projects or I only have a certain amount of supplies that we need for something else. So they knew that they could not use them. It worked out so great and developed really great routines in my classroom. Helena (20:23): I absolutely love this organizing strategy for the classroom and I will definitely be using it for my second grade class. Another thing I wanted to make sure to hit on in this podcast episode was to make sure that you are being kind to yourself and being your very best number one fan. I know all too well that as a first year teacher you are going to be extremely hard on yourself but don’t forget to give yourself some credit and honestly you know you better than anyone else and you have amazing ideas. You are here for a reason, you’re here to make an impact. And each day it’s all about bringing that to life, which I talk about with Khristen. And she goes into depth about the importance of listening to yourself when it comes to creating activities and classroom lessons inside the classroom. Khristen Massic (21:23): The one thing that I wish I would’ve known as a new teacher is that my first idea when I’m planning like for my lesson, for my learning activities is probably a great one and that I just need to try it out to see if it actually works. And then with that, if I have figured out a structure or routines or protocols that we’re working really well in class and that my students were really engaged in to just keep using those over and over and over again with my different content. Helena (21:57): Kirsten is an absolute guru when it comes to engagement and planning out your day with lesson plans. So definitely go check her out. She is absolutely amazing when it comes to that. And I also wanted to wrap up with a couple of first year teacher tips from some people that have been here on the podcast. Now the first one is gonna sound familiar, it’s from Emily from Teacher Joy. If you haven’t listened to that episode, definitely go check it out. In that episode, Emily talks about the importance of incorporating joy into your classroom. So here is what she had to say as far as what first year teacher tip she would give herself. Emily Person (22:42): First thing I would say is don’t give up and it does get better and that every year is different. And I think to my teacher self, I would tell her not to be so hard on herself. There were, I could not tell you how many conversations I had with my principal at the time of like, am I gonna get fired? Like I thought I was just gonna get fired. And I think that’s cuz I was on a probationary certificate cause that’s what they give you when, no, it was not a probationary certificate, it was an intern certificate and was only good for one year. And I was like, man, this class is so rough. Like what if I can’t be a teacher after this? Like everything that I’ve worked for is gonna be gone. But I would say don’t be so hard on yourself and just be true to you. Like if I, if I had known what I know now and be like, hey, like you’re gonna be successful, it’s going to be okay, but be true to you. I feel like my first year teaching would’ve gone a lot smoother had I have, you know, known that. Um, and that it’s, it’s okay. Like it’s, you’re gonna make mistakes and that’s okay, we’re gonna work through them. But just I would say be true to you. Be authentic. Helena (23:54): It is so important to be authentically you and to define yourself in teaching and never to forget why you’re here and who you are. And I know deep down you have this huge image of what the ideal teacher you looks like and it’s all about finding that with joy and figuring out how you can meet authentically you. Which brings me to my next guest who was Brittany Blackwell from Teaching Mind, body and Soul. And she talks about what tip she would give first year teacher her if she could go back in time Brittany Blackwell (24:33): Is getting clear about your boundaries. Like really like just going hard on the boundaries. Like really just being aware of your energy boundaries, your time boundaries, all of these different things so that you can kind of boundary work not only kind of helps you get out of burnout but it also prevents burnout. You know, like if you’re really focused on okay, this one section of your life and you set a boundary there, it’s like it can’t get past it, right? And really learning to just say no when somebody asks you to do something. Helena (25:13): Boundary work is so important when it comes to making sure that you can enjoy this profession long term. And I really love how Britney touches on the importance of that and how it can save you in the long run. The final person I wanna share with you, if you are listening to this podcast when it releases, I’m kind of giving you a sneak peek into a future podcast episode, but I have Annabel Williamson, la May Star loca coming onto the podcast here very soon. And she shares what she learned her first year of teaching and what she wished she would’ve known back then. Annabelle Williamson (25:54): Yes, so much so. Um, I honestly didn’t think I was so ready to go into teaching to be clear. Like I knew that that’s what I was supposed to do. And then when I got there and it was nothing like I expected and so much more work and so much more stress and I just thought like maybe I’m not , maybe I’m not cut out for it and what am I gonna do? Like what will I do? I’m not good at anything. I desperately needed people to tell me, one, your best is enough. Like and it’s gonna look super different from your best five years from now. And also you need to stop saying those things about yourself or to yourself cuz you’re not helping anything, you’re just putting yourself down and and it puts you in a really ugly place. I would’ve cried a whole lot less if people had told me like, stop being so mean to yourself. Just be kind. You know, Helena (26:53): Annabelle is an awesome human being through and through. If you don’t follow her, definitely go follow her because she is one of those genuinely nice people that you just are so grateful to have in your life. I love how she got super vulnerable and talked about how you need to be kind to yourself. And I know that you’re gonna be your own worst critic when it comes to your first year of teaching, but you are doing an amazing job. And I know not a lot of people are telling you that and I know some days it’s not going to feel that way, but you are and I am so proud of you. You are making a change, you are making a difference and you are reaching those kids even when it doesn’t feel like it. So I wanna wrap this up with my final bonus podcast or bonus expertise tip. (27:47) Surprise, it’s from me but my piece of advice for you is make sure to be in the moment with your kids. I cannot tell you strongly enough that you will not get these days back with your kids. And when summer comes around, you’re not gonna think back to whether or not that was an amazing lesson or not that you delivered. You’re not gonna think about those days that you didn’t get grading done on time or you fell behind. What you’re really going to miss are your students and those connections. So take some time today, sit down with your kids and actually laugh. Have some joy, incorporate some joy with them and be in the moment because you will not get these moments back next year. A new group of kids are gonna come and you are going to forever miss that first group of kids. (28:38) I definitely know I did. So that is my tip. Last final tip of advice for you from veteran or experienced teachers. And I did promise you that there was an announcement at the end of this podcast episode and that is that there I am hosting a free thriving first year teacher summit at the end of March. Yay. Surprise. I’m super excited to announce it. And here’s the thing, it is completely free during the live event and then you can always upgrade an access for a V I P pass for backdoor pass and bonuses, but also lifetime access to the replays. So I will make sure to put the link down below To join, like I said, is completely free. I have been working with not only the speakers and the amazing teachers that you heard on this very podcast episode, but other teachers as well. (29:37) And I created a put together a online summit for all first and new year teachers to join to learn different things like time productivity, classroom management, how to get grading done and self-care and everything in between. I pulled and asked you guys what you wanted and I made sure to find somebody to present on that. There are 25 presenters and it’s over the course of three days. So make sure to get in cuz like I said, during those three days of the event, it is free and I don’t want you to miss out on this. So we’re stronger together and I will talk to you soon. (30:17) Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode. I hope that you were able to take away some value that will help you thrive inside and outta the classroom. It would mean the world to me. If you could take five seconds right now and leave a review on this podcast and if you found this podcast especially helpful, make sure to take a screenshot of this episode right now and tag me on your tilt school. Let me know you’re listening. As always, remember that we are stronger together with all the love in the world, Helena, aka the P teacher. See you next time. Teacher bestie.

First Year Teacher Tip #1: Ask All the Questions

The very first, first year teacher tip is from Rebekah Poe from Lesson and Lattes, who is an Special Education Expert that provides best practice’s in special education for working with students with IEP’s. Here’s what she had to say about a tip she would tell first year teacher her:

My number one tip for new teachers is not to be afraid to ask questions. As a new teacher, you are not expected to know everything, however you are expected to want to learn. So make sure that you’re asking those questions for the answers that you’re not quite sure of that will show initiative on your part.
REBEKAH POE

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It is so easy for you to just get in your own mind and to feel even guilty for asking those questions, but this is a great reminder that you need to ask those questions because that’s how you’re gonna learn.

We don’t tell our students that they shouldn’t be asking questions and learning. If anything, that’s what we wanna see happen. So we need to give that grace to ourselves and be happy and even proud to ask questions. And yet on the other hand it can be so hard to figure out who to listen to and who not to. As a new teacher you might be getting a lot of information or you might be needing to ask more questions either way.

It’s super important to take some time and reflect on the information you are getting and figure out does it align with you and is it authentic to you and who you wanna be as a teacher? And this really reminds me of this conversation I had with Rainy Barton. Which brings me to the next first year teacher tip:

#2 Be Mindful of Who You Listen To

The next first year teacher tip is brought to you by Rainy Barton. Rainy is a time strategist guru, she’s all about saving time using productivity hacks and she has a little more to say about this.

If I could go back in time and tell myself one thing as a first year teacher, it would be to really monitor where I’m getting ideas for curriculum and resources and who I’m listening to. Because I feel like as a first year teacher, everyone is trying to give you information and it’s very hard to determine what’s actually good, what’s actually bad. I encourage you to do your own research, like actually figure out like who you trust in the community to give you good curriculum ideas and like help guide you on your teaching journey and who not really to listen to that just likes to hear themselves talk.
Rainy Barton

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When you first start out it can be really hard to figure out the following questions:

Is this person aligned with me?
Does this resonate with me?
Is this a teacher that I wanna invest in or a mentor I wanna follow?

Definitely take this into consideration as you find a mentor or other teachers online to support you.

I can speak from experience, and I can honestly say you are going to find an amazing group of educators on the online world. It is possible and there are so many great ones out there, it’s all about finding the ones though that resonate with you and finding the ones that are authentic to you.

On the flip side, it is super important to focus on just one thing at a time and not to try to do a million things at once. In the business world they call this “shiny object syndrome,” where you see something new and you try to tackle a million things at once. Which we talk about with our next tip:

First Year Teacher Tip #3: Focus on One Thing at a Time

One of the best first year teacher tips I ever recieved was to focus on one thing at a time and stick with it. When you put your energy on so many different things, you actually tend to get hardly anything done.

And that is something that Shametria from the Rowdy Math Teacher really talks about. She goes into depth about how if she could go back, she will tell first year teacher her all about focusing on the one thing I’m becoming a pro at before you move on to the next.

One tip I wish that I would’ve gotten as a first year teacher is to not try and do all the things. When you’re a first year teacher, there are so many ideas and strategies and things that you wanna do in a classroom. Things that you see on Pinterest or things that other people are talking about maybe in Facebook groups or the things that you see on Instagram. And it’s hard not to want to, you know, change everything that you’re doing to try something new, especially when you’re struggling in a certain area. But I encourage you to make changes just one at a time. That gives you time to really focus in on a change that you wanna make and make something that’s gonna be worthwhile and that also gives you time to really see if the change is going to be beneficial for you and your students.
Shametria Routt

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Focusing on one thing is so important to focus on. Here at the Present Teacher we talk about the importance of focusing on one thing until it becomes automatic. And that is exactly what Shametria is talking about.

Make sure to perfect one area in your craft before moving onto the next. It will help you so much in the long run.

If you’re anything like me, maybe one of the first things you want to focus on is building a classroom community, or perfecting your classroom management. That’s what makes this next tip from Angel Honts so important which is our next first year teacher tip.

#4 It’s All About Community

Another first year teacher tip came from a conversation I had with Angel Honts who is an educator who empowers other teachers to focus on classroom community and management. And this is what she had to say when it comes to being a first year teacher:

The advice I would give myself is a first year teacher is all about connections. community, consistency, and clarity. Take time to get to know your students, let them get to know you. Build community, make that a priority. Be consistent with your clear expectations because kids thrive on structure. Show them you care. Give, have high expectations with high support.
Angel Honts

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I love how Angel talked about that level of support in community and we sometimes forget. It’s easy to forget when you’re going through the day-to-day tasks about why you’re really here. And if I know you like I think I do, then I know you’re here to make an impact. You’re here to connect with those kids and you are here to make a change. And sometimes along the way you can lose part of that.

And that reminds me of this conversation I had with Catie Cupples who also has something important to share about community:

First Year Teacher Tip #5: The Importance of Prioritizing

It’s easy to get wrapped up in all of the things we are required to do as a teacher. That’s what makes this next tip from Caitie Cupples so important:

If I could go back in time to talk to first year teacher me, there are a lot of things I’d wanna say but one thing I would definitely tell myself is to remember that quote from Maya Angelo and that is that “My students would forget what I said, they’ll forget what we did, but they would never forget how I made them feel.” I’d tell myself that it’s okay to put relationships first, to prioritize my classroom community and to nurture my students in my own emotional wellbeing. Even if it meant I needed to throw the lesson plan out the window, I would tell myself to be patient and to remember that every day I’m growing an everyday coming closer to the teacher I’ve always wanted to be.
Caitie Cupples

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I love how Caitie focused it back onto her kids. Your kids are not gonna remember that lesson plan. They’re not gonna remember you staying late, they’re not gonna remember all these amazing activities that you stayed up past midnight prepping. They are gonna remember how you made them feel.

And I know you are in this battle right now of trying to balance getting everything done. You’re trying to have the Pinterest perfect classroom, get ahead, stay afloat, all the while trying to make your kids feel seen, heard and understood. That’s what makes this First Year Teacher Tip so great.

#6 It’s Not About Being First

Along with prioritizing your kids it’s important to focus on yourself. Which is why I love this next first year teacher tip from Emily Eggers from Teach From the Couch. In this teacher tip she talks about the importance of focusing on the things that matter and leaving the things that don’t.

One piece of advice that I would give to first year teacher me is that showing up at the crack of dawn and leaving after it’s dark is not a sign of dedication or of your worth as a teacher. It is the early signs of burnout. And as a teacher we need to set boundaries, uh, with our time and make sure that we are putting systems in place that will help us be efficient with our time. So it is not impressive to your admin that you are staying late or getting there early and doing tons of work and spending all your time in the building. It’s just showing them that you are willing to stretch those boundaries and they may take advantage of that later on. So make sure you put those boundaries in place and set up systems for yourself so that you can um, be more efficient with your time and not spend all your time at school.
Emily Eggers

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One of the hardest lessons to learn as a first year teacher is that you don’t have to stay late and stretch your boundaries in order to be a good teacher. You might be looking around wondering:

What’s the secret?
What do you not know that gets everyone out the door on time?
Or you might not realize that there is another way and you don’t have to spend hours and hours after work to get the things done.

Just like Emily said, it’s important to create those systems and put them in place so that you can have the boundaries to thrive inside this profession for years and years to come. Which brings me to my next first year teacher tip which is to focus on grading.

First Year Teacher Tip #7 Focus on Grading

If you are like many other teachers I’ve talking to, I’ve spoke to, maybe you have trouble figuring out what to grade. This is one of the first year teacher tips that Lesa Smith shares with me. Lesa is a literacy teacher and she helps literacy teachers thrive inside their classroom. And she talks about some advice she has when it comes to grading things.

If I were to go back and give myself advice after 15 years of teaching in the beginning it would be actually two pieces of advice. One, you don’t have to grade everything as a high school English teacher. There’s so much that can be marked and really what is the best use of your time and the best feedback to give students And that’s not long comments and editing on all of their assignments. So try and streamline looking over something, peer reviews, um, even just a quick check mark sometimes is enough just as a check-in. And then the other is before you leave on Friday, have a plan for Monday, do your photocopying, upload whatever to your learning management system. And this to me saves so much anxiety on Sunday nights that I know when I leave on Friday, I don’t have to think about the week until I get to school on Monday.
Lesa Smith

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It is so important to figure out the right way and what things to grade, but it’s also important to set yourself up for success for the upcoming week.

And one way to do that is to get organized digitally. I cannot tell you how much time you’re gonna save if you organize your files and resources now so you can use them for years and years to come.

Which is what our very next first year teacher tip is all about:

#8 Organize Your Classroom Now

When I heard this first year teacher tip from Lisa McHargue I just knew I had to include it in this blog post. Lisa is an organization guru, but it didn’t always start that way. Here’s what she has to say about organizing your classroom right now:

If I could go back in time, I would tell first year teacher Lisa to organize her stuff better because my first year of teaching there was so much to do and I thought I was being so smart with how I was organizing my lesson plans. So year two comes around and I cannot figure out where my files are. Luckily I figured it out real quick and fast forward about seven years into teaching, I had a flawless for me system, which is probably why I spend most of my time now helping people get digitally organized. So first year teacher Lisa, put some thought into what you’re gonna name your files and how you’re gonna save them cuz it’s gonna save you a lot of time down the road.
Lisa McHargue

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I cannot tell you how important it is to organize your files now. That way six or seven years down the road you will know exactly where everything is and you won’t spend hours looking for resources for your lessons. (Yes I’m calling myself out here…. first year teacher Helena…)

P.S. If you have LOVED all these tips so far, make sure to join us inside the Thriving Teacher Summit where all of these wonderful teachers will share with you step by step how to get these strategies in place now so you don’t have to learn the hard way…like we did.

So make sure to save your seat here.

First Year Teacher Tip #9 Organize Your Supplies

Speaking of organizing items apart from digital files, there’s something else you might wanna consider when it comes to organizing and I bet it’s not what you’re thinking… it’s your supplies.

I speak with Amy Rodman and she is a art teacher who inspires educators to incorporate more creativity in the classroom for themselves and their students. And Amy has a little bit of a history when it comes to organizing supplies and she shares her first year teacher tip on how to keep your class organized so that way you have systems and procedures in place for you and your students.

My tip to you as an art teacher who had a ton of supplies that were constantly messy all over my room until I really learned a system of organization is to find a way to organize that allows your students to manage it for you. Because at first I thought I had to do everything myself and every horizontal space was covered. It was just always a mess. I had to get things out for them because they didn’t know where to find things and it took a lot of time and sometimes you don’t feel like you have the time but believe me it will save so much time in the end. So my structure, I actually learned it from a science teacher friend who had similar cabinets. Which was to label things with the red light, green light system.
Amy Roadman

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Amy continues to explain her green and red light system to organize your supplies. Here is how it works:

Green Label- These supplies are for you to use at any time without asking, but it only stays a green label if you are using them properly and you’re putting them away whenever you’re done.
Yellow Label- Ask to use these supplies because they are messier and sometimes you might not have time for these supplies.
Red Label- These supplies are only for special projects or there is limited supplies so students are not allowed to lose them.

Overall, creating procedures so your students are responsible for the supplies in the classroom is a great first year teacher tip I would have followed at the beginning.

#10 Be Kind to Yourself

Another first year teacher tip I wanted to make sure to cover was to make sure that you are being kind to yourself and being your very best number one fan.

I know all too well that as a first year teacher you are going to be extremely hard on yourself. But don’t forget to give yourself some credit and honestly you know you better than anyone else and you have amazing ideas.

You are here for a reason, you’re here to make an impact. And each day it’s all about bringing that to life, which I talk about with Khristen Massic. And she goes into depth about the importance of listening to yourself when it comes to creating activities and classroom lessons inside the classroom.

The one thing that I wish I would’ve known as a new teacher is that my first idea when I’m planning like for my lesson, for my learning activities is probably a great one and that I just need to try it out to see if it actually works. And then with that, if I have figured out a structure or routines or protocols that we’re working really well in class and that my students were really engaged in to, just keep using those over and over and over again with my different content.
Khristen Massic

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Khristen is absolutely right, when it comes to your classroom, trust your intuition and try it out. If it doesn’t work out that’s okay, you can adjust next time. But never forget to find the joy in things. Which brings us to our next first year teacher tip:

First Year Teacher Tip #11 Find the Joy

The next first year teacher tip is from Emily Person from Teacher Joy. She was on the podcast earlier this year and talked about the importance of finding joy. If you haven’t listened to that episode, you can find it here. Here is what Emily had to say as far as what first year teacher tip she would give herself.

First thing I would say is don’t give up and it does get better and that every year is different. And I think to my teacher self, I would tell her not to be so hard on herself. There were, I could not tell you how many conversations I had with my principal at the time of like, am I gonna get fired? But I would say don’t be so hard on yourself and just be true to you. Like if I, if I had known what I know now and be like, hey, like you’re gonna be successful, it’s going to be okay, but be true to you. I feel like my first year teaching would’ve gone a lot smoother had I have done that. You’re gonna make mistakes and that’s okay, we’re gonna work through them. But just I would say be true to you. Be authentic.
Emily Person

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It is so important to be authentically you and to never forget why you’re here and who you are. And I know deep down you have this huge image of what the ideal teacher you looks like. But at the end of the day it’s all about finding that with joy and figuring out how you can be authentically you.

#12 Get Clear on Your Boundaries

Which brings me to our next first year teacher tip from Brittany Blackwell from Teaching Mind, Body and Soul. In an earlier episode she talked about her journey from getting out of burnout herself to helping thousands of teachers around the world do the same.

If you haven’t listened to that episode yet, you can find it by clicking here.

This is what she had to say when it comes to her first year teacher tip from the past:

My tip is getting clear about your boundaries. Like really like just going hard on the boundaries. Like really just being aware of your energy boundaries, your time boundaries, all of these different things so that you can kind of boundary work not only kind of helps you get out of burnout but it also prevents burnout.
Brittany Blackwell

Boundary work is so important when it comes to making sure that you can enjoy this profession long term. And I really love how Britney touches on the importance of that and how it can save you in the long run.

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First Year Teacher Tip #13 You’re Best is Enough

One of the final first year teacher tips I have for you is that your best is enough. And this tip came from none other than Annabelle Williamson from La Maestra Loca. In this podcast episode (soon to be aired next month) is all about how Annabelle uses the importance of community inside and out of her classroom to make an impact.

This is her tip if she were to go back and talk to her first year teacher self:

I desperately needed people to tell me, one, your best is enough. Like and it’s gonna look super different from your best five years from now. And also you need to stop saying those things about yourself or to yourself cuz you’re not helping anything, you’re just putting yourself down and and it puts you in a really ugly place. I would’ve cried a whole lot less if people had told me like, stop being so mean to yourself. Just be kind.
Annabelle Williamson

Connect with Annabelle:

Annabelle is an awesome human being through and through. If you don’t follow her, definitely go follow her because she is one of those genuinely nice people that you just are so grateful to have in your life.

I love how she got super vulnerable and talked about how you need to be kind to yourself. And I know that you’re gonna be your own worst critic when it comes to your first year of teaching, but you are doing an amazing job. I know not a lot of people are telling you that and I know some days it’s not going to feel that way, but you are and I am so proud of you. You are making a change, you are making a difference and you are reaching those kids even when it doesn’t feel like it.

#14 Be in the Moment

The second to last first year teacher tip for you is a really important one. In fact, it’s one that I learned the hard way after my first year of teaching and it’s this:

Make sure to be in the moment with your kids. I cannot tell you strongly enough that you will not get these days back with your kids. And when summer comes around, you’re not gonna think back to whether or not that was an amazing lesson or not that you delivered. You’re not gonna think about those days that you didn’t get grading done on time or you fell behind. What you’re really going to miss are your students and those connections. So take some time today, sit down with your kids and actually laugh. Have some joy, incorporate some joy with them and be in the moment because you will not get these moments back next year. A new group of kids are gonna come and you are going to forever miss that first group of kids.
Helena Hains-Daubenspeck (The Present Teacher)

You won’t get your kids back after this, unless you loop with them. So as a first year teacher tip, enjoy the moment while it’s here. Because you will never get those moments back.

Which brings us to our final first year teacher tip.

First Year Teacher Tip #15 Learn From Us

The final first year teacher tip is to learn from us. Learn as much as you can from the educators around the world so you don’t make the same mistakes.

These educators are here to support and guide you. Learn from these tips and continue to learn. And I have a way you can achieve that which is to join The Thriving Teacher Summit.

The Thriving Teacher Summit is all of the teachers above creating resources for you to thrive inside and out of the classroom. If you liked the advice you got from the educators above, make sure to tune in to this Free 3 Day Digital Summit where there are over 20+ presentations.

Click here to save your seat before it ends!

Overall

All in all, there are a lot of lessons to learn when it comes to your first year teaching. If you aren’t done learning and you want to find out more, don’t forget to click here to learn more first year teacher tips.

[jetpack-related-posts]

Categories: Classroom Management, First Year Teacher, New Teachers

5 Key Strategies to Setting Up Classroom Procedures As a First Year Teacher

Setting up classroom procedures as a first year teacher can be exhausting. You’re trying all the advice your coworkers are giving you. Even trying new strategies you found online. But no matter how many new things you try, your students are still relying on you for everything, and they are never moving around the classroom as you would like them to.

As a first year teacher, you may be feeling overwhelmed with how to best manage your classroom. Establishing procedures and expectations that are clear, consistent, and easy to follow can help create a positive learning environment for all students. This guide will provide tips and techniques on how setting up classroom procedures as a first year teacher can have your classroom running smoothly without you.

Yes you heard me! So let’s grab that cup of coffee and get this classroom running like the classroom of your dreams!

Listen to the podcast:

5 Strategies to Setting Up Classroom Procedures as a First Year Teacher

Helena (00:00): Have you ever felt like you’ve tried everything but your students are still relying on you for everything? It feels like your classroom’s just not running how it’s supposed to and your students aren’t following the rules. If you feel this way, I wanna let you know you’re not alone. My student, Amanda, felt just like you. But what if I told you, if you could have the classroom where your procedures were so clear and defined that your students ran the classroom by themselves and you didn’t even have to say a word, I know you can do this because I helped my student, Amanda and other teachers around the world do the same. And that’s what we’re gonna cover in today’s episode. So make sure to stick around. You won’t wanna miss this. Hey teacher bestie. My name’s Helena and I’m the creator of the President Teacher podcast. I’m a first year teacher coach and in this podcast you are gonna learn everything from simple actual classroom management, social emotional learning, and teacher wellness strategies. You know that impact you wanna make in the classroom. We’re gonna make it happen here. (01:02) Step one to building procedures is actually building relationships within your classroom. I’ll never forget when someone told me a student won’t learn from a teacher they don’t like. And this couldn’t be any more true today. You see, building relationships is important because you need to get your students to know, like, and trust you so they learn from you and it’s also important that they learn to work and build relationships with each other. So how do we accomplish this? You’ve probably heard people say build relationships in the classroom, but you might be asking yourself, but what does that mean? What does that look like? So I’m gonna tell you right here, right now, the first thing you gotta do is model, model, model, model, model. What does positive behavior look like? What does lining up or sitting at the classroom look like? Model what this looks like and doesn’t look like. (01:53) What does it sound like and what does it not sound like? And you need to model what positive relationships look like. What do good friends do for each other? What do they not do? Take some time in your classroom and go over what do good friends do for each other? Do they share? Do they not share? What does that look like? What does that sound like? What about conflict? Conflict resolution? How can you make things a win-win when you come to a conflict with another teacher or with an adult? Also, you wanna model what building a relationship looks like. Students learn best by watching you. They will mimic you. And if you are actively incorporating these into your classroom, your kids will pick up on them and they’ll start actually conflict solutioning or solving problems the same way you do in the class. So maybe you can show them what asking someone to play with me looks like being nice when someone isn’t having a good day. (02:53) All of these you can show by modeling, but you can also model to your kids what that’s gonna look like. The next thing is icebreakers. You can build relationships within your class by actively participating in icebreakers. And I don’t mean just for your students, I mean for teachers too. I love to do icebreakers with my kids because, well, number one, it incorporates join my day, but two, okay, I’m a little competitive. Three is good because it helps me build relationships with my kids. So icebreakers are a great way to build relationships from student to teacher, from end student to student as well. The next thing is check-ins. Do a daily check-in with each other. And as a class, how are we doing? How is the individual doing and what can we work on? (03:44) You also wanna build a positive classroom community and talk about what does that look like? What does that sound like? What can, what are the expectations for students to do in order to create that? And what can you as a teacher do to make sure that you are creating a environment where students and teachers feel heard, seen, liked, and trusted and validated. So step number two to creating procedures is to actually have clear expectations. Once the relationship is there and you have that solid, solid between the teacher to student and the student to student, students will want to make you proud. It’s our job to show them how they can make us feel proud. Let’s talk about what it looks like. Sounds like in the classroom. Use a visual model and do right from wrong. So this is literally how I do a procedure. I will talk about a procedure or an expectation I have in class like raising our hand or responding to a class call. (04:49) Then I will make a visual, I will model it and then we can make a visual model and we can talk about what I did right, what I did wrong, what did it sound like, what did it not sound like? What did it look like? What did it not look like? And during this process, I typically have a very deep conversation with my kids about how there’s a such thing as making a wrong choice, but there’s no such thing as a bad kid. And that’s really important. And I preach this in my class that I will love you whether you make a good choice. I will love you whether you make a bad choice or a mistake, that does not change for me. But once you have that strong relationship with your students and they have it with each other, they’ll want to make each other happy, they’ll want to make each other proud. (05:38) So make sure you’re modeling what expectations are clearly to your class. That way they can make you proud because honestly, that’s what kids want. They want to thrive. They’re not doing it as a personal attack. Step number three is to have clear outcomes and consequences. So okay, we made a mistake, but what happens when they don’t follow the expectations? Well, I’m here to tell you that natural consequences are going to be your best consequence or the best thing you can hope for. When it comes to not following expectations, natural is always best. I highly, highly recommend you keep all behavior in your classroom when possible. However, there are some severe behaviors that if you do it in my class, it’s an immediate out, I don’t tolerate it at all. And that’s throwing something and then putting hands on another person, those two things will immediately get you outta my classroom. (06:40) Everything else with exceptions, I’m gonna as asterisk that times five, I try to solve everything else in my classroom. So let’s talk about consequences. So let’s say that so and so, um, made a mess while picking, you know, while doing an activity and there’s a mess all over the floor. Well, the natural consequence would be to pull that student aside and to ask them to pick it up. That’s just the natural consequence and that’s what I try to do in my class. But you wanna think about what is the latter of outcomes that happens when a student makes a mistake or purposefully makes a wrong choice. So the first time, what happens then the second time, then what? Third time then what? Fourth time, then what, I’ll give you an example of mine. The first time I like to, it depends on what it is. (07:37) Sometimes I can tell the kids aren’t sure or they made a mistake and or they’re doing it on purpose the first time. Maybe you try to ignore it. Maybe it’s something that isn’t that major. So you just move on and you ignore the behavior so it doesn’t become something the second time. Maybe you give a non-verbal cue The third time, maybe you wanna remind them ex of the expectation or maybe even better yet, the third time, instead of bringing attention to that student who made the mistake, you point out another student as an example. So for example, I love how so-and-so is sitting crisscross applesauce, apples in their basket eyes up here, tracking the speaker with still hands, that is showing the other kids that you are giving praise to those that are following your expectations. Maybe then the fourth time you give a non-verbal cue, the fifth time, maybe you pull that student on the sideline and you have a one-on-one conference with them and talk about their consequence. (08:38) Either way, having this all planned out beforehand is really gonna help you. And then at what point is it a behavior plan deciding for you how many steps, how many warnings you’re gonna give your kids is really important. And then staying consistent across the board is really gonna help you. Step number four is helping your kids have responsibility through self-management. Students that are responsible for their own learning really thrive. And in our classrooms we really wanna make sure that they’re being responsible for their behavior and they have time to self-reflect. So there’s a couple different ways you can do this. You can have independent behavior trackers, you can have super improver walls, maybe you have a classroom behavior tracker. So for example, I talked about an independent behavior tracker that could be like a super improver wall. That’s what I use. And so students get a sticker and they level up each time they do a positive thing or I, you know, I celebrate them in class for following my expectations or the class’s expectation. (09:49) Maybe for a classroom behavior you do beat the teacher and if they have more green than red tallies, however many green tallies is they have is how many minutes they get to leave early or how many minutes of free time they get at the end of the day. Either way, having a way for students and the class to be accountable of their own behavior is super important. The next step is to develop routines and proce procedures. Like I said, you’re going to want to model these and most of all, you want the class to help come up with these routines and procedures. Now here is by far, I admittedly say the biggest mistake I made for several years. And the other biggest mistake I see first year teachers make when it comes to procedures is they create the procedures around the space. You do not want to do that. (10:48) I repeat. You do not want to do that. You wanna create the space that supports your procedures. So let me explain. So, or kind of expand on this. When I first started teaching, I was so excited to set up my classroom that I would buy all this decor and I would set up my classroom to be super cute. But then by the time it came down to the flow of my classroom from students, from getting point A to point B, turning in papers, I hadn’t thought that through. So then when the first day came or even the first month came, it was a struggle where instead if you focus on how you want the flow of your classroom to be first and then decorating the space, it’s really going to help you think about, okay, where do I want students to go when they’re done? (11:45) Where do I want my students to grab their materials? Those are all things you wanna think of first before you set up up your classroom. Now if you already set up your classroom, it’s not too late, take notes down. But this is a huge mistake I’ve made and other teachers have made too and I have. So again, don’t create procedures around the space. Create the space that support your procedures. And I do have a checklist actually that I created with every single procedure that I teach in a school year. And it’s a checklist and I revisit it every year. I revamp it, I talk about, you know, where I have it in my space, in my classroom, how it ran, and then I revisit the same checklist every single year when it’s back to school and then I revamp it if I need to. What I love about this is it’s also a great way to refer back to the procedures I’ve gone over already in class. (12:46) So when Christmas break or winter break comes around or after spring break and I notice my kids need to kind of review what we’ve learned in class and our procedures, I can go through this checklist and review it. So it’s already there and it’s already created. And when I teach every year, it’s already set up ready to go and I love it is such a time saver. So if you wanna download this, check out the show notes, I’ll make sure to put it there. You can have it, keep it, share it with your friends because man, I wish I did this like my first year seriously. But anyways, in that checklist you’re gonna see a lot of different procedures I set up in my classroom and I think through. But here are some that you can think of right now as you’re listing in the car or when you’re walking your dog, whatever you’re doing, here are some procedures you should be thinking about and have already covered in class. (13:42) And if you haven’t, don’t worry. I definitely did not cover all these the first couple of years and then I wondered why my kids were having a hard time or I covered it for a day and then I never revisited it. So here are some examples. First thing, pencils. How do you want your kids to get your pencils? Second thing, bathroom. What’s the bathroom procedure? Turning in work. I have a Ms. Hayes I Nu Box lining up. Are they in line order? Do they just go? Do you have music that dismisses them walking in line? What does it look like? Sound like transitions look like, sound like. Um, do you use different songs? Which songs mean what? Will you change those songs, class calls? What’s the expectation after you do a class call? Morning jobs. What happens when they come in the morning? Do they just come in and put their backpack and sit down? (14:27) What are they expected to do? Packing up at the end of the day stations. These are just some examples that I came off up with. But like I said, there’s a lot of procedures and if you didn’t cover one, that’s okay. It is not too late. I come up with procedures in the middle of the year all the time when I feel like we need to. So make sure to grab that, that freebie cuz you can grab all these and more. Thank you so much for joining me and I am so excited because you are now. Once you incorporate all these, the Queen of Procedures teacher Vesty, I would love if you could DM me your favorite part of today’s episode. Remember that we are stronger together and I will see you in the next episode. Love the present teacher. A k a. Hold on. (15:19) Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode. I hope that you were able to take away some value that will help you thrive inside and outta the classroom. It would mean the world to me. If you could take five seconds right now and leave a review on this podcast. And if you found this podcast especially helpful, make sure to take a screenshot of this episode right now and tag me on your socials. Let me know you’re listening. As always, remember that we are stronger together with all the love in the world. Helena a k a, the present teacher. See you next time. Teacher bestie.

Related Links:

Super Improver Wall
Ultimate Classroom Procedures Guide
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Establish a Positive Classroom Environment- AKA Relationships

The first step to setting up classroom procedures as a first year teacher is to establish a positive class environment. You might be surprised to hear that you actually achieve this by establishing positive classroom relationships! When your students have a good relationship with you and each other they are more likely to follow along and even be leaders in following those classroom procedures you have set.

A positive classroom environment is essential for student success. Start by defining and communicating your expectations for student behavior. Encourage a sense of community in the classroom by introducing icebreaker activities and regularly checking in with students to build relationships. I personally love to do love calls, greet my students at the door, and love notes.

Acknowledge students’ efforts and recognize that all students have unique strengths and weaknesses. Focus on building those positive relationships with your students and you will be on your way to setting up classroom procedures as a first year teacher.

Set Clear Expectations for Students

The second step to setting up classroom procedures as a first year teacher is to establish expectations for your students. Students thrive best when they know what’s expected of them. 90% of the time students want to make their teachers happy once that relationship is built. It is your job to model what that looks like and sounds like.

One way to do this is to establish firm but fair expectations for student conduct. Make sure that your rules are clear and understandable, so students will understand the reasons behind them.

For example, you can set a rule that all students must raise their hand and be acknowledged to answer or ask a question. Post your classroom rules in an easy-to-see location and review them on a regular basis to help students remember them and hold each other accountable for following rules. Make sure to model what it sounds like and looks like when this procedure is done correctly.

All of these tips are a great way to setting up classroom procedures as a first year teacher. If you want help with this, check out my Ultimate Procedures Checklist that walks you through step by step what procedures you should be incorporating in the classroom.

Enforce Rules & Consequences

The third way to setting up classroom procedures as a first year teacher is to make sure to have clear rules and consequences when students do not follow your expectations and procedures.

As I mentioned before, students thrive the most when they know what is expected of them.

This is also true when it comes to their consequences. If students know you are not going to give them a consequence for their action, then they are going to continue to do the unwanted behavior.

Teaching students to follow rules is essential in maintaining an orderly classroom. In order to ensure that students understand the consequences for breaking rules, communicate your expectations from the start and make sure that all students are aware of the possible punishments for their actions. Each infraction should result in a consequence and be applied fairly, meaning the same consequence for each student who breaks a rule. Establish consistent outcomes – it will help you to maintain structure and provide consistency for all learners.

An example of what this could look like is:

1st consequence- nonverbal warning
2nd consequence- private verbal warning
3rd consequence- think sheet
4th consequence- note home

All of these ideas are a great way to setting up classroom procedures as a first year teacher.

Teach Responsibility Through Self-Management Techniques

The fourth strategy to setting up classroom procedures as a first year teacher is to teach your students responsibility for their learning.

Encouraging students to take charge of their learning can be challenging, but is an important step in developing self-management skills. Create a behavior chart that allows students to track their own progress and set classroom goals. I personally don’t believe in clip charts, but I prefer to provide a super improver wall. Which you can check out here.

You can also provide incentives, such as earning extra playtime or treats, when they meet those goals. I personally like to play beat the teacher for a couple minutes of “free time” at the end of the day. Make sure that all students are involved in the process and are aware of the consequences if they fail to meet expectations.

These are great examples on how you can start setting up classroom procedures as a first year teacher.

Develop Routines & Procedures

The final step to setting up classroom procedures as a first year teacher is to actually develop the routines and procedures. Ideally you want to do this before you even set up your classroom, but it’s never too late to incorporate new procedures.

Ask yourself:

How do I want my classroom to flow?
Where should students go if they need to find x, y, or z?
What centers do I need to set up in order for students to be successful?

By setting up your classroom to support your routines, you are ensuring your day runs smoothly and thought out. Routines help to provide consistency and structure, making it easier for students to know what is expected of them. This can include the timing of when the class should enter and exit the room, the materials they will need for lessons, and any other procedures necessary for smooth classroom management. Make sure that all students understand each routine thoroughly before proceeding with instruction.

And as always make sure to model what it looks like and sounds like for each routine with your students. All of these strategies are a great way to setting up classroom procedures as a first year teacher.

Overview

Overall, there are 5 different strategies to setting up classroom procedures in the classroom as a first year teacher. This includes:

Establishing a Positive Classroom Environment- AKA Relationships
Setting Clear Expectations for Students
Enforce Rules & Consequences
Teach Responsibility Through Self-Management Techniques
Develop Routines & Procedures

All of these strategies are great ways to setting up classroom procedures as a first year teacher. If you need a routine on how to introduce a new strategy and what procedures you should incorporate download The Ultimate Procedures Guide where I provide you a list of the top procedures every classroom should incorporate as well as a video companion walking you through how I introduce a new routine.

What procedures are you incorporating this week? I would love to know!

[jetpack-related-posts]

Categories: Classroom Management, First Year Teacher, New Teachers

5 Strategies to Improve Classroom Management as a First Year Teacher

You finally step into your classroom for the first time only to realize you have no idea how to have effective classroom management as a first year teacher. Sure, you may have taken some courses, read a couple books, even saved a million strategies you saw on Tik Tok or Pinterest. But you may quickly realize that college didn’t really prepare you for the classroom. So you have started looking for different ways to improve classroom management as a first year teacher.

If this is how you are feeling right now, don’t worry! We’ve all been there. In fact I would say 98% of the teachers I’ve ever worked with or coached has said the same thing. But here’s the thing, it doesn’t have to be this way! You can have a well oiled machine of a classroom that is ran so smoothly that your students can run it without you… seriously! I have done it and I’ve helped hundreds of other teachers do it too!

So if you want to have a self-ran classroom in your first year, grab a coffee and read or listen to these five 5 Strategies to Improve Classroom Management as a First Year Teacher.

Listen to the podcast:

5 Strategies to Improve Classroom Management as a First Year Teacher

Helena (00:00):
Have you ever felt like your behaviors are just out of control and there’s nothing you can do? You’ve stalked all the free Facebook groups and you’ve even asked your teacher bestie and that mentor teacher down the hallway. You’ve tried the trends on TikTok but it’s still not working. And you might secretly be wondering if you’re cut out to teach. What if I told you that you could have a classroom that was so well ran that would blow your admin away and other teachers would be flocking to you asking how you did it? I’ve been there too and I used to struggle with classroom management after years of experience trying different things, learning from other teachers, I finally found what worked for me. And today I’m going to share the five tried and true strategies to make you tackle your classroom management like a veteran teacher. So stick around. You won’t wanna miss number five. It’s the one that everybody overlooks, guaranteed. Hey teacher Bestie. My name’s Helen and I’m the creator of the President Teacher podcast. I’m a first year teacher coach and in this podcast you are gonna learn everything from simple actual classroom management, socialist learning, and teacher wellness strategies. You know that impact you wanna make in the classroom. We’re gonna make it happen here.

(01:21)
The first strategy to tackling your classroom management like a pro is to have clear rules and expectations. Kids thrive when they know what’s expected of them. I remember when I was teaching, I thought I had good rules and expectations, but boy was I wrong. Students weren’t always doing what I wanted or what I thought I had taught them and I felt personally attacked like my students were out to get me or something because they never followed the rules. It wasn’t until admittedly years later that I found out it was me. Hi, I’m the problem, it’s me now. The problem was, is I was not setting my students up for success. You might be wondering, how do I get my kids to listen to me and follow expectations? If this is you, you’re not alone. Don’t worry, I got you covered. Teacher bestie. Here are a couple different things you can do.

(02:17)
The first one, create clear expectations on what they should do. Model it right away. Discuss it with your class. For example, if I need a clear expectation on how we get water, I’m going to introduce it to my class and say, today we’re gonna talk about how we get water and I’m gonna model it, what it looks like and what it should sound like. And then I’m, we’re gonna sit down and I’m gonna have my, my students turn and talk and talk about what did they notice about how it looked like and sound like the expectations were for water. After that, we’re going to share out loud what we thought and have a discussion about it. Then I’m gonna have a kid model it. They’re gonna model it what it looks like, sounds like then and your kids have fun with this. Especially if you’re primary.

(03:06)
Your kids will love this. Have someone model the wrong way and every once in a while I kind of like to model the wrong way. Not gonna lie anyways. Model the wrong way to do it. Have your students think, pair, share what they did that was the wrong way. And then have them discuss it and then model the right way. Again, praise, praise, praise. Make sure to stop your lesson and call out and praise a lot the people that are doing and following expectations the right way. Also, don’t be afraid to review. I am personally always happy to review if it is going to save me hours of heartache and headache at the end of the year, it is worth doing now. So after every break, after a weekend on one of those crazy Mondays, whenever I notice my kids are just totally forgot as a class what to do, I will make sure to take time outta my day to review that procedure.

(04:10)
Next thing rules. Now your rules should be made through a class discussion. So I used a chart and we came up with our rules together. Um, I had my kids, you know, think okay for each other, some rule ideas and then they shared out loud and then we kind of tallied and combined the rules that made sense in group together. And I combined them to make five main rules. And then after you have your kids vote on which rules they agree on, come up with the rules themselves. I had my students signed by the rules for a couple reasons. First off, yes, some admin make you do this, but the reason I do this is because I now have student buy-in. Now when they break a rule and they’re having a hard time agreeing with me on their consequence or what have you, I can remind them, remember as a class and your name is here, we agree that we would raise our hand for permission to speak whatever the rule is or be a bucket filler.

(05:16)
That way you have now student buy-in and they feel like they are part of a community instead of a dictatorship. The next thing is to have clear consequences. When you have a student who is purposefully making a bad choice, try to ignore the bad choices if possible, I like to give a nonverbal cue. After that maybe I praise another student who’s doing the right expectations and I will point out that they are following the expectations and what I like about it. So for example, I love how so and so his eyes are facing floor, their hands behind their back, their their voice has a bubble. And I will keep doing that until that student naturally fixes. And then I’ll praise, make sure to praise a student who fixed their behavior. I might pull them aside and give them a reminder. Remember we use walking feet when we are in the hallway.

(06:15)
I might have that one-on-one talk with them and then we might practice and model what it looks like. Sounds like I might give an isolated warning where we talk like an isolating. By that I mean with going on the sideline, I might give them a think sheet and then a parent contact. Remember, natural consequences are always the best. So always try to look for that natural consequence and try to give it as neutral as possible without emotion. Because you don’t want your kids to feel like you’re, they can get you upset. Just give it as neutral as you can and move on. So, and I also talked about this before, but I remind my students that there are no such thing as bad kids just mistakes. I love them for who they are. I love them for when they make good choices and I love them for when they make bad choices.

(07:07)
They are not defined by the mistakes they make. So that is my quick spiel on all that. So strategy two is positive reinforcement as a teacher and as teachers, you really wanna think about how am I going to let my kids know that I see them in my classroom? I try really hard to make sure my kids feel seen, heard and validated. So at the beginning of the year or at the beginning of every day even, how am I going to let my kids know that I see them today? Am I gonna view them through a good positive lens or a bad lens? I personally try to have a positive classroom. There is way too much negative out there in the world. I want a little piece of positivity. Harry Potter happiness. And so have you ever had a morning where students just made it worse?

(08:03)
You were having a really hard morning, you woke up late and then you came in and your kids were just feeding off of you. It’s the same thing when it’s positive. Have you ever had a positive morning? You got your morning workout in, you got your five minutes of silence, you, you journaled, you finally got to actually drink your coffee instead of microwaving it five times beside the point and you came in and your kids had an amazing day. Same thing. We wanna create a positive environment for our kids. So you might be wondering, how do I create a positive environment? Everyone is telling me to do this, but how do you actually do it? So if this is you, here’s some ways you can do that. I got you covered. First thing, love calls. Ugh, I love these love calls. Love calls are positive calls home.

(08:57)
Now I had shared this on my TikTok and some people said that they don’t like doing calls because it’s triggering to some families. So they do positive notes either way, positive calls, love calls, love notes, home are amazing. So what I do is in the middle of my day, maybe we’re doing small group or the kids are working independently. If I see a student who has just been on top of it all day, they are on top of their game, I will pause everything. And the first time I do it, I make it a big deal guys, huge, a huge deal. And I say, oh my goodness, look and so and so would you like to do a love call? And they’ll be like, what’s a love call? They’ll be like, oh a love call is where we call home and we talk about what an amazing day you have.

(09:44)
You guys, my families are raving about this. Do love calls. Trust me. First off, it’s a great way to communicate with your families. It shows them that you are a positive teacher and it makes your kids’ day. I wish my principal would, you know, call my family and give me a love call. I wish I got positive notes from my principal. I wanna do the same for my students. So love calls and positive notes in my class we do bucket filling notes and I even do love notes where I leave them. Um, and Thanksgiving and we did the gratitude notes where I did it. One reason why I was grateful for each student every day you can get Y expo marker and write on their desks. Either way, think about how you would wished admin would treat you and do the same for your kids.

(10:34)
It just makes their day. The next thing is the super improver wall. Okay, did you guys ever use those clip charts? I know I’m cringing just saying it. And if you use a clip chart, don’t come at me. It’s okay If you like your clip chart, you keep your clip chart. But I despised my clip chart and it seemed like all the veteran teachers even, you know, all the veteran teachers used them. I didn’t like them because I felt like those kids that had a hard time regulating their emotions and their choices, once they finally came back they would see what color they would at and I would look for any reason to bring ’em back up, clip their pen up and they just couldn’t cuz they would just shut down And I just don’t, I don’t like that at all. So I use a super improver wall.

(11:32)
What this does is it uses gamification or using behavior kind of like a game. And students have like a little game card or a level up card and they get stickers and once it’s full I like to send mine home and they level up to the next color. And so essentially students are, are leveling up for their good behavior. What I love about this is kids then do not need materialistic things to be happy. I don’t do treasure test. Now granted, I do give my kids, you know, sporadic prizes here and there, but I don’t do Friday treasure chest. I want my kids to be proud of themselves because once they leave my classroom and they go to other teachers, I want them to be proud of them once they’re adults, I want them to learn to be proud of themselves. And so I want them to learn to look at their behavior and be proud of themselves.

(12:32)
So that’s what the super improver wall is hard. I’m gonna be honest, positive reinforcement is hard. But you know what I ran into most if not most of these ideas from an amazing, amazing educator named Ms. May from one fab teacher. I found her on YouTube, had to be a couple years ago now. And you guys, if I can meet Ms. May, Ms. May, if you’re listening, I’m a huge fan. Sorry I had to put that in there. Go follow her because you just talk to her and she is one big bucket of sunshine. Like she just makes your date better. So go follower on YouTube, she is a beautiful person inside and out. She makes education beautiful. Okay, I’m done. Go follow her for some positivity because she’s the queen of it. And then there’s another book she had mentioned and some other teacher authors too out in the teacher space recommended it too.

(13:32)
And you guys, this book changed my life and I think most of what Ms. May learned, or at least I can say partial, is from this book it’s called Whole Brain Teaching for Challenging Kids by Chris Biffle. It changed my life you guys, please, please, please go grab it. Seriously, it is so good. I can’t, I can’t even, I have it right here on my desk. I haven’t. I put it in my backpack, you guys, I read it two years ago, three years ago. I still keep it around because it is so good. I have read a lot of classroom management books. They don’t beat this one. This one actually works. I’ve tried all the different, you know things. This one works. So okay, I’m done. Just go, go get it. Trust me, you’re gonna want it. Strategy number three is to encourage good behavior with open discussion.

(14:25)
Imagine a world where we intentionally took time out of our day to encourage good behavior where your students would just flourish and they would just, you know, bask in this praise and proud and self-fulfillment when you do this. Now imagine how having a safe space to ask and answer questions while receiving the praise and talking about good behavior, imagine how that could impact students that would completely change their lives. So I wanted to have this discussion. You might be like me and you’re like, you know what? I wanna have these discussions. I wanna create a safe space where my students can talk about good behavior and how to make a choices. But I don’t know how or how to get started. Don’t worry, I got you covered. Here are some ways. First one being morning meaning and end of the day meeting I have taught Kenner and second and I even with my second graders, they love morning meaning I soon taught fourth graders and fifth graders and they loved morning meeting.

(15:32)
This isn’t just for K babies, I love my K babies, my kinder babies, but this is for every grade level. It’s important, trust me. So in my morning meeting I love to have students grade each other cuz it’s building that community and it’s showing them how to build those relationships and those skills. And during the morning meeting, you might take some time to model what making friends looks like. If you go on TikTok, you can see middle school teachers doing this talking about how do you create a friend in middle school? What do you say? What do good friends do? Do they ask about this? What do good friends not do? What do they not? Kids need to be explicitly taught how to interact with each other and they are so thankful when you do. I can’t tell you how proud I get when I see my ba, my little second grade babies that have moved on to third or fourth and they are using the win-win skills.

(16:32)
I taught them in second grade still in fifth grade. Like it is amazing. So also maybe talk about conflict resolution. If you are seeing your kids are, you know, arguing about a specific LI specific thing, how can they make that a win-win? Talk about skills and different strategies they can use a model, what it looks like, sounds like. And my final thing, see weapon, my kids love this and they get mad when I don’t do it. Okay, for your listening kids anyways, they love superstar shoutouts. So what superstar shoutouts are totally still is it is I ask for three superstar shoutouts and it’s the end of the day meeting and my kids raise their hand and I pick three kids to call out three of their friends and they say thank you so and so for blank. And then we do a class cheer again.

(17:27)
I’ve gone from kinder all the way to fifth with this. The next thing is three superstar aha moments. So three things they learned today and that’s a great way to kind of review and keep kids accountable of their learning cuz they know that I might call on them for a superstar aha moment. The third thing is superstar apologies. Oh you guys remember when we talked about how to intentionally take time outta your day to ask and answer questions? A safe space? That’s what this is. You’re creating a safe space where if kids did not have that opportunity to apologize, they can and they will use that time. And how cool is that? Now they don’t have to, but I can tell you almost every single day when I do this, I should do it every day. I try to do it every day. I’m almost every day.

(18:20)
But when I do this I always have three apologies and it could be demean to each other, to the class I’ve even apologized. It is game changer. Strategy number four is to be flexible with the needs of your kids. Now remember when you were a kid and you went to school, how did you feel when you went? Now if I’m gonna be completely transparent with you, I felt like I had no control. I felt like I was always a boss around. I was never allowed to talk. I always had to do what other people wanted and I never got to choose for me. Now here’s a secret. The more organized choices and freedom I have given my students, the better they performed. I’m gonna say that again, the more organ organized, it’s not chaotic, but organized choices and freedom I gave my students, the better they performed, the better they performed as a class, the better they performed at building community, the better they performed on assessments.

(19:31)
Now I’m not saying chaos, I personally like structure, chaos and me just do not drive. And but, and remember students do thrive when they have structure. But start asking yourself, how can I give them more choices in the classroom? How can I give them more organized choices in the classroom? This could look like how they work. Are they sitting? Are they standing? Are they laying on the ground? What kind of work do they need to do to show me mastering? Does it have to be doing a worksheet or could they write a poem about it, write a song about it. Um, make a fort or some kind of model. I mean, having your kids and how we rethink education is so important because our kids are brilliant and they have their own unique, amazingly beautiful ways to thrive. And giving kids a safe space to do that is so extremely important.

(20:31)
So I would encourage you to start thinking about how can I give my kids more choices? And again, model, model, model, have clear expectations. And I’m not saying, you know, go tomorrow, tell your kids, sit however you want. I like to bring it up slowly. This is how we set the carpet. If we choose to lay on the ground, like make sure you model, make sure you have expectations, but start thinking about these and how you kind of make education your own. It doesn’t have to be the strict thing, it’s always has been and it it’s not. It’s on its way out. When you start thinking about how we can revolutionize or evolutionize education strategy number five, clear communication. Alright guys, this is the part that I said a lot of adults miss a lot of adults, including me, my first couple of years, a lot of adults miss communication.

(21:28)
Now how I want you to ask yourself, how do I want my kids to communicate with me? Could it be raising their hands? Do you want ’em coming up to your face? I personally get extremely dysregulated when I have a bunch of students putting their hands, fingers, mouths, everything in between in my face. And I’ve taught my kids that I have come out and said, when at the beginning of the year, and if you haven’t done this yet, that’s okay. But I was realizing that I would lose my cool and feel like I had to do the teacher yell whenever I had a crowd of students looking at me and putting their extremities in my face. And I don’t do that. So I talked to them at the beginning of the year and I talked about when they do that, what it might look like when I regulate myself.

(22:17)
What techniques am I using? Am I using heart to home? Am I using, you know, counting four breathing, square breathing, rainbow breaths? Either way, having those boundaries and clearly communicating them with your kids is important because one, well it keeps you sane during the school day. I don’t know about you. Second, it shows kids how they can articulate their discomfort to adults. Remember our kids learn so much from watching us. So if you are there talking about regulating and keeping your boundaries and then they see you regulate yourself when you are upset or dysregulated, that is huge. And what I noticed as other students were coming in and my class and they were pretty triggered or dysregulated by things. And so as a class model what that looks like, what does it look like when I feel upset or these extreme or these feelings? And how do we overcome that?

(23:22)
How can I articulate when I’m thinking and feeling to an adult or to my friends so that way we can still be respectful. Let students feel like they have a control or they have a say on how they wanna be communicated with. And you are creating a space for your kids to be free and feel validated. Seeing heard, like no trusted. And it’s huge guys. It’s huge. All right, I know this one went pretty deep. I hope you found this helpful. I would love if you can share this podcast with another teacher bestie so we can share the love. If you found any of these tips helpful, send it over to them. Tell ’em which one you found the most helpful. If you incorporate every single step I mentioned, you are going to be blown away by these results guys. So you’re gonna have a self-run classroom and the classroom is going to be that one that everyone raves about. If you found this helpful, like I said, share it with your teacher bestie. Remember, we are stronger together. Take care. You know I love you. I’ll talk to you soon. Love Helen.

(24:37)
Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode. I hope that you were able to take away some value that will help you thrive inside and out of the classroom. It would mean the world to me. If you could take five seconds right now and leave a review on this podcast. And if you found this podcast especially helpful, make sure to take a screenshot of this episode right now and tag me on your socials to let me know you’re listening. As always, remember that we are stronger together with all the love in the world. Sona, aka, the present teacher. See you next time. Teacher bestie.

Relevant Links:

Visit the website by Clicking here!
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40 Self-care Ideas in 5 Minutes or Less-Get it here!
Join the First Year Teacher Support Group by Clicking Here!
Send me a DM on Instagram!
Follow me on TikTok!
Join the Mindset Monday Newsletter!

Establish Clear Rules and Expectations

One of the first strategies to improve classroom management as a first year teacher is to establish clear rules and expectations. Establishing clear classroom rules and expectations from the beginning is one way to keep your classroom organized and reduce distractions.

Communicate expectations clearly with your students, using positive language rather than focusing on the negative. Outline acceptable behavior for all learning activities, including how students should speak to one another and how work should be completed. Explain the consequences of breaking rules, such as spending time in time-out or the natural consequence, so that students know what to expect if they do not follow instructions.

You want to ensure you are being consistent and fare. One way I like to introduce procedures is by introducing the procedure to my class. Next we talk about what it looks like and sounds like when you do it the right way. Then I have someone model the wrong way to do it. Afterwards I have my students practice the procedure until they model it nearly perfectly.

A common consequence to students not following procedures is to have them practice it until they get it right. This is a great way to be fare with high expectations without being the grumpy stressed out teacher. Overall, this is a great way to improve Classroom Management as a First Year Teacher.

Set Up Positive Reinforcement Systems

Another way to improve Classroom Management as a First Year Teacher is to set up a positive reinforcement system. As I Jen Sincero (Author) says:

“What you focus on you create more of.”
Jen Sincero

That couldn’t be any more true in the classroom. Encouraging positive behavior in your classroom through reinforcements is a great way to keep students engaged and motivated. When students see that you focus on the positive more than the negative, the less likely they are to draw negative attention.

Rewards can be both physical, such as stickers or other small items, or verbal, such as praising the student for good work. I like to use scratch and sniff stickers on my super improver wall. Or another positive reward system are love calls (a positive call home) and love notes (positive notes).

Keep these rewards simple and attainable to encourage students to continue their good behavior. Flexible seating is another way of reinforcing positive behavioral choices, as it enables students to make independent decisions while learning.

Encourage Good Behavior with Open Discussion

Another way to improve classroom management as a first year teacher is to create an open dialogue between students and teachers.

This can be done in many ways. For example, utilizing your morning meeting as a time to review expected procedures is a great way to encourage good behavior. Stopping the class to point out when a student is doing an outstanding job, or even doing a love call are great ways to encourage good behavior in the classroom.

I personally like to have my students model our expectations with me and even ask questions and make them better. All of these examples are a great way to improve classroom management as a first year teacher.

Be Flexible with Student’s Learning Styles and Needs

It’s important to remember that not every student learns the same way, just like no two teachers are the same. That’s why another way to improve classroom management as a first year teacher is to incorporate different learning styles in the classroom.

When possible, be flexible with your students and be willing to try out different styles of learning. Incorporating a choice board on how your students show proficiency or master in a skill is a great way to attain this. Including choices that allow your students to draw, write, speak, act, or even create mastery are all great ways to incorporate different learning styles. Click here to read more about incorporating choices into the classroom.

Taking into account each student’s needs and preferences can greatly help manage disruptive behavior and power struggles while also helping to create a more productive learning environment.

Provide Clear and Effective Communication Methods

The final way to improve classroom management as a first year teacher is to have clear expectations when it comes to communication.

How do you want your students to communicate with you?
What does that look like?
What does that NOT look like?
What do students do if they feel stuck or need help?
How should students communicate with each other and other staff members?

All of these are great questions to consider when it comes to effective communication in the classroom.

Overview

Overall there are several ways to improve classroom management as a first year teacher. You can:

Establish clear rules and expectations
Celebrate positive behavior
Have open discussion on what good behavior looks like
And being flexible with learning by providing choices

All of these are great ways you can start improving classroom management as a first year teacher.

[jetpack-related-posts]

Categories: Classroom Management, First Year Teacher, SEL, Teacher Self-Care

A Guide To Help First Year Teachers Thrive in Education

The life of First Year Teachers, are crazy! And going from a student teacher to a First Year Teacher is a big life transition, but it doesn’t have to be stressful!

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A Guide to Help New Teachers Thrive in Education in The New Year Transcripts

Helena (00:00):

It was in that moment. I remember this vividly. I was shaking cold cuz it was so windy. I was holding Kyle’s hand in his pocket cuz it was freezing. And I remember looking up at what looked like the space needle in my mind because Washington, Seattle, I remember looking up and thinking I’m such a failure. Hey teacher bestie. My name’s Helena and I’m the creator of the President Teacher podcast. I’m a first year teacher coach and in this podcast you are gonna learn everything from simple actual classroom management, social emotion learning and teacher wellness strategies. You know that impact you wanna make in the classroom. We’re gonna make it happen here.

Helena (00:47):

It’s new year, new you and whether you like to stay up when the countdown reaches zero, watch the ball drop and fireworks. Or if you are in bed by 10:00 PM on New Year’s Eve, we are all under the fresh start effect. Let me explain what this is. So you see, five years ago on December 31st, 2018, I was walking around Las Vegas, Nevada with my then boyfriend Kyle for the first time. He had surprised me with this trip and we had packed his little white GT Ford Mustang with a suitcase and drove seven hours to go to Las Vegas and we were broke, just graduated college students so we couldn’t really afford a hotel for very long. So we got a hotel for one night. And despite being exhausted after our seven hour drive from New Mexico to Las Vegas, Nevada, we decided to walk the entire strip of Las Vegas.

Helena (01:42):

We didn’t get a taxi because, um, KAF cuff, we were both being stubborn. Love you Kyle. We walked inside and out of every single casino on the strip that we could. And let me just say the views were glorious. I felt like I was in a time capsule back to when I went to my Italy trip Beside the point. By the end of the night we had walked over 25,000 steps despite our seven hour drive that day we ended our night looking up at the Strat Hotel, looking up into the very, very cold and windy sky for rails. They thought they were going to postpone or not even do the fireworks. I’m glad they did. But it was in that moment, I remember this vividly. I was shaking cold cuz it was so windy. I was holding Kyle’s hand in his pocket cuz it was freezing.

Helena (02:32):

And I remember looking up at what looked like the space needle in my mind because Washington, Seattle, I remember looking up and thinking, am such a failure. You see, time seemed to stop. And in this moment I remember looking back at my entire first half of my first year of teaching remember. And I remember thinking, what am I doing with my life? What am I doing? And in this moment, time seemed to slow down, down. And at that moment as I watched the fireworks, I made a wish. So what I described to you my not the 25,000 steps and the 20 year old stubbornness, but that moment in time where time seemed to stand still, that’s what we call the fresh start effect. So I first heard this term on an episode on the Mel Robbins podcast. I’ll include her show in the show notes.

Helena (03:31):

It’s a great podcast for setting goals and reaching your goals in life. But you might be wondering what is the fresh start effect? Well, it’s when you blow the candles out on your birthday cake or you’re starting a new school year, a new month, new quarter, or in this case that I referred to the new year. It’s that moment in time where time seems to stop and you dig deep and wish for that internal thing that you’re so scared to say out loud when the old you stops like Neo and the matrix and the new you and the possibilities come to life. So what was my fresh start effect during this cold new year night in Las Vegas, Nevada? Well, it was simple. I didn’t wanna cry anymore. I wanted to thrive. You see, that sounded very cheesy, but you see, just like the fresh start effect time stopped for me on that cold night.

Helena (04:26):

What I didn’t mention was that the old me two weeks ago had slept for three days straight on my winter break because I was so exhausted and mentally and emotionally checked out. The old me was staying up past midnight trying to get everything done on my first year teacher to-do list. And the old me kept looking around wondering, what on earth am I missing? How do these other teachers do it all? As I was working late into the night and early into the morning at that time in my life, I had reached that moment where I looked around and finally said, if this is teaching, I can’t be a part of it. And that hit me hard. I had wanted to be a teacher my whole life, even had my little brother when in six, when he was sixth play school with me nonstop until he would beg my parents to tell me to play something else.

Helena (05:18):

Sorry dalt! That’s how obsessed I was. But on December 31st, 2018, things were different. I had dug deep and found out what I really wanted to do. I didn’t wanna suffer anymore. I wanted to make the change I knew I could make as a teacher and still thrive outside of the classroom. I didn’t wanna work late anymore. I didn’t wanna bring work home and nonstop working until I was crying because I was so emotionally and mentally exhausted. So what did I do after that moment war time stopped. Well, I made a wish and Kyle and I climbed upstairs into our hotel room and fell asleep by 1205. I know we’re hardcore over here, but beside the point when I got back to my house in New Mexico, I went to work. You see the fresh start effect is all about taking the old you throwing it to the wayside and starting to pursue the person you wanna become.

Helena (06:21):

So how do you do that? How do I start a fresh start effect and start taking action? Well the first thing you need to do is to make a wish. Take a second now and make a wish for this next year. Forget everything that’s happened over the last couple months or year and dig deep and wish. Now I’m not talking about that little wish you that you would say out loud to everybody. I’m talking about that scary dream that you don’t dare say out loud because people will think you’re crazy. Do you wanna hear mine? My wish is, is that this year I will finally thrive inside and outta the classroom and I will help other teachers around the world do it too. You see, I didn’t have anyone to be with me along this journey when I first started, but here on this episode that’s going to change on this podcast show, I’m going to have experts, friends, mentors, and other teachers from around the world walk us through how we can finally make the impact we wanna make inside the classroom while still thriving on the outside.

Helena (07:29):

Which brings me to my next point. The second step to the fresh start effect is to take action. I’m not talking about climbing en Everest tomorrow, but if you do teach your bestie, totally send me pictures because I wanna see Mount Everest bucket list Anyways, I’m talking about showing up every single day and taking one action. So let’s go back to that Everest example. Let’s say that two teacher besties are climbing up Mount Everest. They don’t get there by doing a short sprint and giving up. It’s all about taking a small step every day or inch by inch, one step closer to the top. And what might you find along the way? Well, remember this is a journey, not a destination. What’s beautiful about this journey is you’re gonna find other teachers along the way, people behind you that can help you climb up and it’s all about the climb.

Helena (08:26):

So think about one small action you can take each day to get started. Which brings me to step number three. So if you are a first year teacher, here are five things you can take action to thrive as a first year teacher in 2023. The first one being, develop a classroom management plan. I can’t tell you how many times I struggled with behaviors. If only I had taken the time to create a classroom management plan, I would’ve known exactly what I was doing. A classroom management plan, there’s a lot of different, different, different definitions going around, but it’s not a bunch of roles. It’s how you want your classroom to run on a day-to-day basis. And I actually have a freebie you can grab and download that’ll walk you through your classroom management plan. So make sure to download that. The second one being have clear expectations and procedures.

Helena (09:24):

How do you want your students to interact with you? Others in materials? Make sure to model this. Take the time and sit down with your students and model what it should look like, model monolith for them. And then have them discuss with each other what it looks like, sounds like. And then have someone come up and volunteer to model what it doesn’t look like, can sound like. And then have a couple more people model again what it looks like. Seriously. Model, model, model. It’ll save your life. Think about those expectations and those procedures that you wanna have in your classroom. The third one being a focus on building relationships. Honestly, your relationships can make or break your year. Students will not learn from a teacher they don’t like build. That’s why it’s so important to build that no like and trust factor with your kids, for example.

Helena (10:16):

Here are some ways you can build that no like and trust factor with your kids. The first one being greet them at the door. Maybe you give second. Maybe you give them a positive call home or a positive note to take home. Third, start asking them questions about them personal, their personal life. And don’t forget to share a little bit about your life too, so you can start building that relationship with them and they can learn to know your life and know more about you. The fourth one being I like to eat lunch with my kids every Friday. You don’t have to do this every day. Trust me as an introvert, I like my time in silence too. But take some time, meaningful time outta your date to just focus on communicating with your students and getting to know them. The fourth thing you can work on as a first year teacher in 2023 is honestly as a first year teacher it can feel extremely isolating, but you don’t have to do it alone.

Helena (11:13):

There are other online communities to join and you can learn from that’ll help you along your journey. So I have a community that I would love to invite you to, which is your first year teacher support group. I love this community cuz we’re all about sharing our wins, targeting and learning from each other, sharing strategies and all of that is super important as a first year teacher. And mostly just a place to feel seen, heard, and understood because I feel like other people just don’t understand your first year of teaching, like other first year teachers do, the next thing you can do is to take five for you. If you’ve been here a long time, this is not new to you, but take those five minutes, this will radically change your day. I have a freebie you can download, which is 40 self-care ideas that take five minutes or less.

Helena (12:05):

But when you take those five minutes for yourself, what you’re gonna find is you’re gonna be able to create an even greater impact with the people you help and you’re gonna feel better throughout the day. So let me ask you, how are you going to use this fresh start effect this new year? I know I’m personally gonna be spending it with other educators around the world, so I can help other first year teachers too. But let me know what you’re focusing on and if you’re on my email list, make sure to go ahead and leave me a response on SpeakPipe so I can possibly put you in the next podcast episode. I would love if you could subscribe to the podcast and in the next episode we are going to be talking about how you can incorporate joy into your day. What is the hardest thing about incorporating joy into your day?

Helena (12:52):

Let me know by asking this question. If you are on my email list, make sure to respond to that audio prompt I talked about. And don’t forget to take a picture of you listening to this podcast and DM me on Instagram that you watched this episode. I would love to hear from you and see all the teachers around the world tuning in to this exact episode. Remember that we are stronger together, teacher bestie. I got your back and I will talk to you into the next episode with all the love the present teacher, aka Helena.

Helena (13:28):

Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode. I hope that you were able to take away some value that will help you thrive inside and outta the classroom. It would mean the world to me. If you could take five seconds right now and leave a review on this podcast. And if you found this podcast especially helpful, make sure to take a screenshot of this episode right now and tag me on your social school. Let me know you’re listening. As always, remember that we are stronger together with all the love in the world. Helena aka, the present teacher. See you next time. Teacher bestie.

Show Notes:

Want to see the show notes?-Click here!
First Year Teacher Checklist-Download here!
40 Self-care Ideas in 5 Minutes or Less-Get it here!
Join the First Year Teacher Support Group by Clicking Here!
Send me a DM on Instagram!
Follow me on TikTok!
Join the Mindset Monday Newsletter!

If I can be completely honest with you, my first year of teaching I felt like a complete failure. I remember looking up at the Strat Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada at 11:59 pm on New Year’s Day. And in that moment, time seemed to stop and I realized something that really hurt… and that was that I had completely failed my first year of teaching.

You see, I wasn’t focusing on what I was supposed to. Instead of building relationships, getting organized, and becoming a better first year teacher I was instead spending my time trying to get everything done on my to-do list and trying to fit the role of “the perfect teacher” by societies teachers.

After years of experience and research, however, I discovered that not all first year teachers have to experience that. With some coaching and strategies, you can make your first year of teaching fun and, dare I say, even thrive?! This guide will provide you with the essential First Year Teacher tips and tricks so that you can ensure your success in the classroom.

So grab that cup of coffee and let’s bring your dreams to life!

P.S. If you want to grab a checklist that walks you through everything, make sure to grab it here.

Develop a Classroom Management Plan.

Establishing clear and consistent expectations is key to having a successful classroom. Creating an effective classroom management plan is essential for setting boundaries, fostering positive student behavior, and avoiding potential pitfalls. Make sure you include rules and consequences that are age appropriate and reinforced by both positive and negative attention. Open communication with your students can help them stay accountable to the expectations you have set in the classroom.

Have Clear Expectations for Your Students.

When you’re a first year teacher, it will be important that you establish clear and consistent expectations for your students. These expectations should be age appropriate and clearly communicated to your students. Make sure they understand what is expected of them in the classroom and reinforce these rules with both positive and negative attention when needed. Your students will appreciate the consistency in your classroom management plan, which will ultimately make it easier to manage their behavior.

Put a Focus on Building Relationships.

As a first year teacher, it’s important that you prioritize relationship building with your students. Try to get to know your students and their individual needs. Developing good relationships will help ensure that there is trust in the classroom, which can lead to better learning outcomes for your students. Additionally, try developing relationships with other teachers at the school who may have more experience in the field. Establishing helpful friendships and mentorships can be incredibly beneficial for new teachers as they navigate their new career path.

Utilize Available Resources and Support Networks.

Take advantage of the resources available to you as a teacher – online resources, professional organizations and support networks, and other helpful tools such as blogs and podcasts. These resources can help equip you to face new challenges and better understand different aspects of teaching. Participating in an education-focused mentorship or peer group can also be great for helping first year teachers learn from seasoned professionals. Lastly, don’t forget about utilizing your own network of friends and family who are there to offer emotional support during times of stress or transition.

Take Time to Reflect on Your Experiences and Learn From Mistakes.

As a first year teacher, you will likely realize from the start that you can’t anticipate every situation. Though mistakes are bound to happen, take the time to debrief and reflect on what happened and what your response could have been better. With this knowledge (and the advice of more experienced teachers) you can work to hone the craft of teaching and be better prepared for potential future situations.

To Wrap it All Up:

Overall, you don’t need to struggle as a First Year Teacher. If anything, you can save YEARS of struggling by listening and working with other teachers and First Year Teacher Coaches. And if you want to get ahead of the game this year, download the First Year Teacher Checklist! Because in the end:

“We are stronger together!”
Helena Hains

[jetpack-related-posts]

Categories: Student Engagement

Amazing Student Engagement Strategies for Hybrid Learning

“Serving two student populations at the same time. I have people joining online and joining from the classroom. Learning to work with both groups simultaneously – that was pretty difficult.”
-Orion Smith

Teaching both groups of students at the same time through hybrid learning can be overwhelming.

Not only do you have a diverse group of students, but now you have to teach them in a variety of ways.

For over a year now, teachers across the world have had to pivot what the face of learning and education looks like to accommodate the crisis of COVID.

During this time teachers have been struggling to keep students engaged while also battling other obstacles on the way.

When I first entered the hybrid learning world after months of online learning, I thought that the two models would be similar.

I also thought that the student engagement strategies that were proven to work for online learning would be efficient for hybrid learning or flipped learning.

However, that was not the case at all.

While struggling to teach both at the same time, it came to my attention that I felt like I was a circus juggling both forms of engagement at the same time.

But after several cases of trial and error and research, I discovered several student engagement strategies for hybrid learning that will save you time and energy.

These strategies are perfect if you are feeling:

Overwhelmed
You have no idea how to keep both engaged at the same time
Like finding something all the kids will relate to is nearly impossible

So grab a coffee because today we are going to cover:

What is Student Engagement For Hybrid Learning?
Why is Student Engagement For Hybrid Learning Important?
3 Student Engagement Strategies For Hybrid Learning That You NEED To Incorporate in Your Classroom

[jetpack-related-posts]

Hey New Teachers!

Establish Rules and Boundaries Early On

Foster Positive Relationships With Your Students

Show Respect by Practicing Active Listening Skills

Hey New Teachers!

Create a Safe Haven for Sharing and Expressing Feelings

Create Opportunities for Collaboration and Teamwork

Overall

First Year Teacher Tip #1: Ask All the Questions

#2 Be Mindful of Who You Listen To

First Year Teacher Tip #3: Focus on One Thing at a Time

#4 It’s All About Community

First Year Teacher Tip #5: The Importance of Prioritizing

#6 It’s Not About Being First

First Year Teacher Tip #7 Focus on Grading

#8 Organize Your Classroom Now

First Year Teacher Tip #9 Organize Your Supplies

#10 Be Kind to Yourself

First Year Teacher Tip #11 Find the Joy

#12 Get Clear on Your Boundaries

First Year Teacher Tip #13 You’re Best is Enough

#14 Be in the Moment

First Year Teacher Tip #15 Learn From Us

Overall

Establish a Positive Classroom Environment- AKA Relationships

Set Clear Expectations for Students

Enforce Rules & Consequences

Teach Responsibility Through Self-Management Techniques

Develop Routines & Procedures

Overview

Hey New Teachers!

Establish Clear Rules and Expectations

Hey New Teachers!

Set Up Positive Reinforcement Systems

Encourage Good Behavior with Open Discussion

Be Flexible with Student’s Learning Styles and Needs

Provide Clear and Effective Communication Methods

Overview

Hey New Teachers!

Develop a Classroom Management Plan.

Have Clear Expectations for Your Students.

Put a Focus on Building Relationships.

Hey New Teachers!

Utilize Available Resources and Support Networks.

Take Time to Reflect on Your Experiences and Learn From Mistakes.

To Wrap it All Up: