Now is a great time to learn how to become an even better teacher next year!

Yes, yes, I know…it’s the end of the year and most of us teachers just want to get started with our summer. Yet, before you go on summer break, while you still have your current students, why not use them to help you become an even better teacher next year.

Don’t worry, this won’t take too much time away from your last week of school and it’s well worth it.

All you’re going to do is have your students evaluate you as a teacher. Just think…who better to tell you about your class and your teaching than the students who you just taught for the past 180 school days.

The teacher evaluation that I give my students is always anonymous. Even if the students want to write their names on it I tell them not to. I stress how important it is for them to be truthful with their answers and how I will use their comments to help me become a better teacher next year. The teacher evaluation has 20 statements with the students checking the box that best applies (always, usually, seldom, or never). The statements cover a wide variety of topics such as giving clear directions, providing enough time to complete classwork, discipline, even whether I am cheerful or not. At the end of the evaluation there is space for the students to add their own comments. I ask the students to be as specific as possible and comment on what they liked most and least about the class.

Of course, their will always be a few jokers who do not take it seriously, but that is a very small percentage. By reading through the evaluations and looking for overall patterns, I get a very good idea of what worked and didn’t work in my classroom from the perspective of the student. I am then able to use the information provided by my own students to make myself a better teacher next year!

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Do you need end of the year awards and certificates?

Every student deserves some form of recognition for good attitude, hard work, academic excellence and outstanding performance.

Classroom Awards, Certificates and Passes contains 73 colorful and visually attractive pages that make it possible for teachers of all levels to recognize and reward students, without having to design the pages from scratch.

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Last week I discussed the importance of designing more creative homework assignments and how this can increase the percentage of students who actually complete the homework.

Another great way teachers can improve their homework completion rate is by giving the students a choice of homework assignments.

Here’s how my own students taught me this lesson…

One day a few weeks ago the homework assignment was to create a journal entry and one of my students asked if she could write a letter instead (read last week’s post for more on these types of assignments: http://teaching-tips-machine.com/blog/?p=94 ). I told the student that it would be fine as long as she followed all the same guidelines as the journal entry assignment. A few other students then asked if they could do the same and of course I told them they could.

This got me thinking…

Then, just this past week, we watched excerpts from the movie Glory about the first African-American regiment in the Civil War (great movie by the way). After watching the movie I was going to have the students write a journal entry as if they were one of the soldiers in the Massachusetts 54th Regiment. However, at the last minute I decided to give them a choice of three different assignments. The students could either write a journal entry, a letter to or from one of the soldiers, or they could write a movie review. In all cases though, they had to include the date and certain key terms that I picked out. In fact, the objectives of each assignment were exactly the same.

The result was great! Not only did I have a high percentage of students completing the homework, but the quality of their homework was very impressive.

Granted, the fact that the students loved the movie certainly contributed, but I can’t help but think that the major factor was that they had a choice in the assignment.

How do I know for certain?

They told me! Several students actually thanked me for giving them a choice…now when’s the last time a teacher got thanked for a homework assignment?

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Are you still having problems getting your students to complete homework?

For more homework strategies that you can start applying to your very next class make sure read eTeach: A Teacher Resource for Learning the Strategies of Master Teachers @ www.TeachingTeacher.com

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Teachers can increase homework completion by making their assignments more creative.

Many of my homework assignments are short creative writing assignments. I teach 8th grade U.S. History and rather than giving students an assignment out of the textbook that is boring and where answers can easily be copied from one student to another, I try to create homework assignments that are more creative, not easily copied, yet still meet the learning objectives of the lesson.

I have found that having the students write short journal entries from the perspective of someone from the time period or having them write a letter to or from someone from the time period works very well. I can do this for any topic we are studying, but I always make sure to set specific guidelines. For example, the journal entry should be roughly one page in length and must include the date, three facts from the day’s lessons, and certain key terms that I pick out. Other than that it can be as creative as they want.

A similar assignment that meets the same goal is to have the students write a creative letter. For example, the letter could be from someone fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg written to their loved one back home. Of course, the letter must contain certain elements that I assign based on the lesson’s objective.

In both cases the students are creating short pieces of historical fiction.

Again, this gives the students some freedom, it is not something that can easily be copied off of another student (a big issue in 8th grade), and I am able to accomplish the main goal of reinforcing the lesson’s objectives.

Also, I have found that I get a much higher completion rate with these types of homework assignments.

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Are you still having problems getting your students to complete homework?

For more homework strategies that you can start applying to your very next class make sure read eTeach: A Teacher Resource for Learning the Strategies of Master Teachers @ www.TeachingTeacher.com

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The school year is coming to an end and you know what that means…

Yes, an increase in classroom management issues…

This occurs for many reasons…

Students have a number of end of the year activities (school plays, graduation rehearsals, class trips, exams etc.). All of these things can add to an increase in classroom management problems as they break up the normal routine of the classroom.

However, teachers also can be a contributing factor to this increase in classroom management issues in that teachers can easily become complacent at this time of year knowing that they just need to get through a few more weeks until summer. Therefore, teachers may tend to allow certain behaviors to slide…they may allow students to get away with things that they wouldn’t have dared allowed students to get away with earlier in the year.

Unfortunately, as we know, these classroom management problems will only escalate and teachers then are forced resort to reactive measures such as writing referrals and assigning detentions.

It’s understandable why teachers do this…by this time of year teachers are simply exhausted and feel that students should know the rules and procedures by now.

However, it is still always better to be proactive rather than reactive and now is actually a great time to re-teach the procedures so both the students and teacher can end the year on a positive note.

That’s right, the best way to address end of the year classroom management is the same way to address classroom management at any other time of the year…teach and re-teach the classroom procedures.

While it may seem silly do something like this at the end of the school year, it will pay off big and both the teacher and student will benefit.

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Adam Waxler, a full-time social studies teacher and adjunct education professor, has developed a FREE 5-part

Classroom Management e-Course…

Learn simple classroom management strategies that will result in an immediate and definite decrease in classroom management problems

To sign up for this FREE course visit:
www.Classroom-Management-Tips.com

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Just wanted to let you know about an upcoming offer available from Learning A-Z’s education resource family of websites during this year’s Teacher Appreciation Week.

In appreciation of teachers everywhere, Learning A-Z will open one of its six password-protected websites each day of Teacher Appreciation Week, May 5-9, PLUS on May 12, so teachers can download and print differentiated teaching materials.

The websites will be open on the days indicated below from midnight to midnight EST.

May 5: ReadingA-Z.com: Thousands of printable books and lessons
May 6: Raz-Kids.com: Interactive leveled reading library
May 7: WritingA-Z.com: Leveled writing lessons
May 8: VocabularyA-Z.com: Customized vocabulary lessons
May 9: Reading-Tutors.com: Reading skills packets
May 12: ScienceA-Z.com: Multi-leveled science units

To find out more visit: www.sitesforteachers.com

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

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