Lesson reflection will save you so much time when it comes to writing and editing your lesson plans.  It's like giving yourself a head start!  You'll evaluate what you're good at and do more of that.  You'll evaluate what needs work, and you'll work on those things.  I talk about the many ways I reflect on my lessons in this episode!

Want to learn more about the All Star Planning Method?  Check out the free masterclass!

Addressing misconceptions in your teaching and lesson plans is going to one up your students' understanding.  It's really tough to do, especially early in your career, or when you are teaching a fresh course.  I give a few tips to collecting and using student misconceptions in this episode.  You can use your students to help you, and they won't even know it!

Want to learn more about the All Star Planning Method? Check out the free masterclass! https://plan.kelseyreavy.com/

Setting goals is an important part of growing. As a teacher, setting goals can be frustrating if you are comparing yourself to other teachers. The important thing is to compare yourself to who you were at the same time last year, to make sure you are growing. This is especially hard to do for the new 2020 school year because all teachers have changed SO MUCH since last year!

Want to learn more about the All Star Planning Method? Check out the free masterclass! https://plan.kelseyreavy.com/

Trusting your students in the lab is no easy task, but teaching very thorough lab safety protocol can make it much easier to trust your students. In this episode of the All Star Planning Podcast, I go over my very in depth procedures for teaching lab safety in my chemistry class.

Want to learn more about the All Star Planning Method? Check out the free masterclass! https://plan.kelseyreavy.com/

Are you a chemistry teacher? Check out my chemistry resources.

Interested in my specific Bunsen burner lab? Read this blog post.

When I was first told about a retake policy, I'm pretty sure I laughed out loud. Now that I've implemented a retake policy in my classroom, I CAN NEVER go back.

Want to learn more about the All Star Planning Method? Check out the free masterclass! https://plan.kelseyreavy.com/ 

Having your students self assess can be a difficult place to get to. You have to create a very strong climate and culture for self assessment in order for it to be successful. In this episode, I will give you my tips on how I get my students to be as honest as they can with me when it comes to self assessment.

Blog Post: Growth Mindset Books I Read to my High School Students

Want to learn more about the All Star Planning Method? Check out the free masterclass! https://plan.kelseyreavy.com/

Exit Tickets have always sounded really horrible to me, so I call them Baby Quizzes. Regardless of what they are called, these exit assessments are used as formative assessments to determine how well your students are understanding the material they have just learned.

Want to learn more about the All Star Planning Method? Check out the free masterclass! https://plan.kelseyreavy.com/ 

Follow me on instagram @kelseyreavy

My name is Kelsey and I hate Do Nows. Well, I hated Do Nows up until this school year. 

As a student I never saw a reason to do them.  This is mostly because my teachers never graded them, let alone looked at them.  When my teachers were circling the room to check and see how their students were doing on the Do Now, I’d pretend to write something.  I one time wrote about ducks.  True Story. 

As a teacher, I felt like my Do Nows. were so difficult to plan.  I never had a “brain” for them.  They seemed to take up almost as much time to plan as the main activity in my lesson.  This was not going to fly.  I changed what I did for Do Nows nearly every month because I couldn’t figure out a simple way to deal with them that was easy for me and my students.   

Once I had figured out a method, I knew I was going to have to figure out a way to make it meaningful to my students, so they didn’t feel like 16 year old me.  I wanted them to see the value to the Do Nows!

For that reason, I made it a point to look at EVERY SINGLE Do Now.  But of course, my students helped me out with this one.  They self assessed. 

Learn my Do Now Strats and Self Assessment tips in this episode of the podcast!

Want to learn more about the All Star Planning Method? Check out the free masterclass!

I didn't realize how personal these plan books were for a long time. Everybody has different opinions about what should be in a plan book. I’ve been through every type of planner there is.  I worked with the printables, the premades, the calendars - you name it, I tried it. 

I’m a very “keep it simple” kind of girl, so for me, I’m currently using this weekly planner where I just write my lesson codes (listen to that episode here) and the names of absent kids.  And that’s it. 

With everything going digital in a moment’s notice, I think the importance of a digital planner has been underestimated.  I think the best part of digital planning is that fact that it is SO easily edited, and even more easily shared.  And I’m talking sharing with both adults and students.  In my All Star Planning Masterclass, I talk specifically about sharing this information with students.

Sign up here. 

Sharing files is so easy when they are digital (especially when saved in the cloud).  This can make coteaching or coplanning much easier.  When this is done in Google Drive, groups of teachers can collaborate on the same document and you cut down on your planning time.  Plus it’s super easy to make edits, when the time to makes changes comes.

I hated learning targets when I was a students.  Well, back then my teachers were calling them aims, but regardless of the name, I never knew the reason why they were on the board each day.  In fact, I thought the teacher just put them there because the principal told them they had to.  It wasn’t until about half way through my first year of teaching that I finally realized the value of learning targets, or LTs as I call them now. 

I realized that learning targets not only tell the kids what the goal of the lesson is, but give them something to strive for.  In my classroom, learning targets become part of the study guide when it comes to assessments.  This is the reason that no matter what anybody tells me, I will continue to write my learning targets as “I can” statements so that they are written FOR my students.  

I also make sure to tell my students how to use these learning targets to their advantage during the beginning of the school year and bring up a reminder quite often.

Want to learn more about the All Star Planning Method? Check out the free masterclass!