Teachers Changing Teaching

Now that the 2021/2022 year has begun, Jamie, Natalie, and Rachel reflect on their first weeks back.  They each share what has been encouraging to them and what brings them joy during these exhausting first days. In the midst of fatigue, they all agree that getting to be with students is the very best thing.

Today at school, consider this: What made you joyful after the first few weeks of school? What excites you about the upcoming school year? In what ways are you changing and growing more confident in your teaching?

After considering the many challenges and insecurities teachers face when teaching a novel, Jamie, Natalie, and Rachel discuss how they tackle teaching a novel. Their conversation focuses on trusting your instincts, using a consistent method or means for students to track their understandings throughout the novel, and the importance of teaching what interests you as the educator. 

Today at school, consider this: What methods can you employ to help students track their understandings in a novel so that they do not become disoriented along the way? How can you use what interested you in a novel to inspire your lessons and daily interactions with students? 

On this episode, Jamie, Natalie, and Rachel discuss the insecurities and questions teachers face when teaching a novel. Together they consider the challenges of how to decide what to teach in a novel, the pacing, and the balance of reading and pausing to do projects. As they discussed, they also address the underlying insecurities that come with teaching a novel: do I know enough? Am I enough?

Today at school, consider this: What insecurities prevent you from trusting yourself as you teach a novel? When you read a novel that you are assigned to teach, what naturally interests or excites you?

After discussing the challenges of the first two weeks, Jamie, Natalie, and Rachel share some of their approaches to the first few weeks of school. Natalie talks about the importance of sharing the purpose behind classroom expectations and holding students to those expectations. Rachel shares a community building activity that also serves to create classroom culture. Jamie encourages teachers that their classrooms can have a reset at any point in the year. 

Today at school, consider this: What is the “why” behind your expectations for students? What benefits could a mid-year reset bring to your classroom? 

Starting the school year can be a daunting task. Within a short amount of time, teachers are challenged with creating a classroom culture that sets the tone for the school year. Jamie, Natalie, and Rachel discuss why creating expectations and community in a classroom is such a daunting task. Their conversation discusses the importance of viewing classroom management as classroom leadership and the benefits of teachers seeing themselves as members of the classroom community. 

Today at school, consider this: How can viewing yourself as the classroom leader, instead of the classroom manager, change your approach to teaching? 

In this episode, Jamie expounds upon the idea of frontloading before reading a class text.  If reading is meant to be a learning, exploratory, and organic process, what is the purpose of frontloading before students read a text? Jamie discusses her philosophy of providing students with broad historical and contextual details and waiting to discuss other matters until they naturally come up in the text. Too frequently we have equated struggle with stupidity in our classrooms and have taken this responsibility and ownership away from students. How can we instead use frontloading to introduce rather than answer?

Today at school, consider this: When you engage in frontloading, are you answering the very questions that the text seeks to address? What is too little or too much frontloading?

After considering the myriad of challenges facing teachers as they seek to promote an environment that encourages students to read, Jamie, Natalie, and Rachel discuss solutions they’ve found helpful in their own teaching practices. Jamie considers the teacher’s perspective and how to position content in the classroom, Natalie discusses her independent reading approach, and Rachel discusses close reading strategies she employs to help students in the classroom content.

Today at school, consider this: Where are students actually starting in their reading process? How can I facilitate student understandings of texts rather than showcase my own understanding of texts as the teacher? How can I regularly include reading in my daily practice? 

On today’s episode, Jamie, Natalie, and Rachel consider the question, “how can I help students see themselves as readers?” Helping students create a reader identity, combatting pessimistic views towards reading, and bolstering engagement with classroom content are all challenges that teachers face in their classrooms. This conversation addresses these pressing concerns and seeks to bring light to what “reading” truly is.

Today at school, consider this: When you discuss reading, are you considering it as only words printed on a page? How can you help foster the growth of reading identities in your classroom?

Teaching during the 2020-2021 school year was a challenge. As summer approaches, Jamie, Natalie, and Rachel reflect on the year and consider how they would like to move forward. They discuss the obstacles of ever-changing schedules, teaching without their usual bag of tricks, and some of the issues in school systems which were highlighted by COVID. There are also takeaways and lessons from the year; mainly, that students want to be connected and want to know that teachers care. 

Today at school, consider this: What was difficult about the 2020-2021 school year for you? What did you learn that you can take moving forward? How can you embrace the upcoming year with an open heart and a renewed commitment to your craft?

Today, Jamie, Natalie, and Rachel consider solutions to the question, “How do I incorporate writing more regularly in my classroom?” They consider how to use standards, timing, student experiences, and the length of assignments to craft meaningful writing assignments. This conversation explores how regular writing routines, thoughtful unit planning, and modeling helps to build a classroom where students see themselves as writers who believe that their words and ideas have value.  

Today at school, consider this: How can you broaden your definition of writing to engage more students? How can you invest in the community of writers already in your classroom?