Before we get started, I have two quick announcements

1.     I’ve been hearing a strong interest in how to support beginning teachers. I went into some key practices last year in episodes 214 and 215, so if you are in the mode to think about how to support your BTs (and ECTs), give a listen to episodes 214 and 215

2.     The July 22 episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast we feature a panel discussion with myself and five assistant principals. Some are national/state AP of the Year awardees and others are just wrapping up their first year as assist principals. The focus of our discussion is being a first year AP! We would love to hear from you. If you have questions, topics, advice, or stories, please consider sharing. Please email them to me at [email protected]. I would love to be able to name contributors but will only do so if you explicitly give permission for us to include your name and affiliation. We are recording on July 15, so don’t wait.

Okay, now onto the episode…

Assistant Principal Podcast Content Episode Outline

Show title and release date: October 25, 2022

Show Description:

Every teacher should have a procedure for beginning class. Most opening class procedures share some common elements:·      What to do with materials·      How or when to sit down·      Getting started on bell work or an activator I’ve been teaching procedures for about twenty years, but this summer I made one small tweak in my format that promises to pay big dividends.

Show Intro

Hello colleagues and welcome to the Assistant Principal Podcast. I’m your host Frederick Buskey. The goal of this podcast is to help improve the life and leadership of assistant principals. 

Today’s episode focuses on the importance of identifying clear goals for our procedures, but before we go any further, I want to remind you about our free micro-journal, Quadrant2. Issues of Quadrant2 come out once every 3-4 weeks. The five-page issues take a deeper look at topics that we address on the podcast. For example, last week we released Issue 2 which focused on how to implement the four patterns of observation in your school. Each issue includes nuts and bolts of implementation, discussion questions for your team, and even a section on how to apply the techniques if you are working in isolation. You can find a subscription link on my website at https://www.frederickbuskey.com/quadrant2.html As a bonus, if you subscribe this week you’ll be able to download the first two issues of Quadrant2 so you won’t have missed any opportunities to learn and grow.

Celebrations:

My recent trip to Kenya. My biggest takeaway is how similar we all are. Our struggles are the same – raising families, pursuing our dreams, and contributing to our communities. We may look and sound different, and our families, dreams, and communities my take different forms, but we all want the same thing. In a time of divisiveness, in the world and here at home, it is worth remembering that people are people, and therefore deserving of respect. We need to treat each other based on our commonalities, not on how our political and social “leaders” tell us we should treat people from different parties, or states, or countries.

The Big Idea

·      We know the reasons why each procedure we teach is important, but by being more thoughtful – and explicit – about the goals we want to achieve, we can make small but powerful tweaks to our procedures. 

The Why

·      My passion for procedures:

o   OSU experience

o   Teaching experience

o   Coordinating entry-year teacher programs

o   How poor procedural classroom prevent leaders from growing teachers

·      Good procedures decrease discipline referrals. Even a one referral decrease in a week yields and average of five minutes per day that you can invest in growing teachers. That’s enough time to make a difference with a new, struggling, or even veteran teacher.

The what (MVP version)

 For years I have taught that a good procedure has five components:

1.     Title or name (may be an acronym)

2.     Steps (1-5)

3.     Key words for each step

4.     Acronym for the steps

5.     Graphic (necessity varies with age)

In prepping for a workshop with a middle school teaching staff in August, I realized that I should be better about emphasizing the why – the goals of a procedure.

I began by looking at a sample routine for entering class. The procedure had four parts – Sit, Arrange your stuff, write based on a prompt, and stand when finished. I called it SAWS:

·      Sit

·      Arrange

·      Write

·      Stand

The goals of a beginning class procedure are obvious: it saves time. If we can get started in 60 seconds instead of 180 seconds, we can save 300+ minutes over the course of a school year. That’s over a week of class time!

But as I began writing down this goal, others naturally appeared. Before I go further, I’m going to give you ten seconds of silence to think about the goals of a good beginning class routine. Besides saving time, what else should the procedure achieve?

Here’s what I came up with:

·      Connect with teacher

·      Maximize learning time

·      Minimize distractions and misbehaviors

·      Empower students to be responsible for their own learning

·      Focus students on learning

·      Begin anticipatory set (optional)

What I was most excited about was that first goal – connecting with the teacher. Sure, the teacher can check in with the students, but what if a part of the procedure directed the students to check in with the teacher? What if every class began with every student making some kind of contact with the teacher? How cool would that be? How humanizing could it be?

Most teachers have one or more students that need that connection, and for whom the teacher should know the student’s emotional state. Making a small tweak to an opening class procedure creates an opportunity for that.

And so, I added a step to my sample procedure. The first thing students do is to say hello to the teacher. What hello looks like will vary with the teacher and the students, but here are some options:

·      Actually say hello

·      Give a fist bump

·      Or a thumb’s up

·      Or share one thin...