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Artificial IntelligenceGood Teaching

Some Advice for Veteran Educators

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

Whether it’s your second year teaching or your thirty-second year, going back to school is an exciting time. There’s the wondering about the students you’ll be impacting, the slight trepidation about what new requirements may be put upon you, and the joy in knowing that others will be gaining insight about this amazing world of ours. But before you put up your bulletin boards and start writing your lesson plans, reflect a little on this advice for veteran educators.

Review What the Research Says about Your Subject Area

A lot of new research has come out in the last few years on the best way to help students master critical content. You may have been so busy teaching that you haven’t had time to stay up with the information. So spend a little time now before the school year starts to review best practices. Check out the resources and tools that I shared in the blog “Some Advice for New Educators;” they’ll save you time and provide you with the most current research in your area.

Try Something New This Year

It can be easy to get stale when you’ve been teaching a while. You pull out the lessons and resources that you’ve used in the past because they are comfortable and save you time. But you don’t want to become that teacher who has taught “one year over and over.” So make a commitment to try at least one new thing this year. It could be a new instructional strategy or a different technology tool. Maybe you want to collaborate with another teacher on a shared project or work with an instructional coach to hone your craft. Whatever you decide, put it in writing and then hold yourself accountable for doing it. You’ll be surprised at the results, both for you and for your students.

Share Your Wisdom

You’ve learned a lot over your years of teaching. Don’t keep that very valuable information to yourself. There will be new educators on your campus who could use even a little of it. Reach out to them before they begin struggling. Let them know that they can get through their first, very hard year and that the battle will be worth it. Remind them of the good that they are doing every day. Pass on some of the advice that you wish you had been given when you first started teaching.

Finally, remember that TCEA is here to help you. If you have a question, you can feel free to email it to me at lgracey@tcea.org any time and I’ll find someone with the answer. If the year starts to get to you, reach out and let us remind you of why you became a teacher and how critical the work that you do is. If you are feeling unappreciated, know that we fully support you and deeply value the difference you are making in the lives of the students you teach.

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Artificial IntelligenceGood Teaching

Some Advice for New Educators

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

You’ve graduated from college with a degree in education, found a great job in a fabulous district, and are excited and ready to go. So now is the time to think through a few things before the start-of-school chaos begins. Here is some advice for new educators to make your first year even more successful.

Know What Works in Your Content Area/Grade Level

You can’t effectively teach others if you don’t know your subject area content. So spend some time this summer looking at what the latest research says is the best way to teach key topics. Use your favorite Artificial Intelligence chatbot and ask it to summarize the research. Be sure to provide it with the standard you are trying to address. The prompt might look like this: “What is the most effective way to teach fifth grade students mastery of this standard: generate questions about text before, during, and after reading to deepen understanding and gain information?” Once you’ve seen the answer, follow the prompt up with a second question: “What research is this based on?” to make sure that its answers are based on the latest information abut how students learn.

advice for new educators

Another way to find the best research on a specific instructional strategy is to use the free version of Elicit, an AI tool. Elicit is an assistant that summarizes more than 125 million research papers for you. It will provide a summary of the top four research papers, as well as links to those and others. It can save you a ton of time and make sure the strategies you are using are the most effective.

If you need additional help with instructional strategies, be sure to read the TCEA blog. We look at the research and share the best ways to teach key concepts in every grade level and subject area. You might also consider taking the online Brain-Based Learning course. Throughout the course, you will gain strategies to apply what you have learned to your own teaching practices.

Remember That You Are Not Alone

Your first year won’t be easy. So it’s important to remember that you are not alone as you begin this journey. All of us have been in your shoes and remember what it was like. Experienced educators in your building, along with your campus administrators and instructional coaches, want you to be successful and are there to help you. But in order to be there for you, you must be willing to open up to them and share when you need assistance.

Check to see if it would be possible for you to observe other teachers’ classrooms during your off period once a week. Your principal can help you decide who to watch and what key strategy you will be looking at. Afterwards, your instructional coach can discuss what you saw and help you apply it to your own teaching practice.

Finally, know that TCEA is here to help you. If you have a question, you can feel free to email it to me at lgracey@tcea.org any time. I may not know the answer, but I guarantee that I know other educators who do and who will be happy to share with you.

I know that you will be amazing this year and that you will make a tremendous difference in the lives of the students you teach!

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active learning
Good Teaching

Active Learning: A Student’s Perspective

by Guest Blogger
written by Guest Blogger

This is a guest post by Britnee Gilliam, a student at Harmony School of Excellence in Austin, Texas and a summer intern at TCEA.

Teachers, have you ever seen your students looking blankly at you during a lecture? They’re not bored, but the class may be losing its spontaneous vibe. Perhaps you should shake things up some and get those kids hanging on the edge of their seats.

We love seeing a video when we walk into class. We also tend to be more attentive to videos because they are different than regular class lectures. But don’t pick just any video. Depending on the seriousness of the subject, pick a video that has humor while still communicating the lesson. Some examples are Crash Course or Bill Nye. With the video, you can have your class take notes on the key points; then they’ll have references for later.

We enjoy hands-on experiences as well. For example, in economics class learning about the stock exchange, you can give the class “money” to invest and then follow it. Watching our investments keeps us on our toes and makes us ask questions and try to gather information to improve. It also appeals to our competitive nature; which one of us can earn the most money?

Also, we love doing experiments in science classes. Who doesn’t like explosions? We students tend to remember things that we actually experience.

Integrating fine arts in a class also helps students process what we are learning. By making posters, shooting a class video, or even writing a screenplay on the topic, we can interpret the content of the lesson. These projects show our understanding of the subject and the kind of art we choose allows for our own unique interpretation.

Finally, have fun with your class and ask our opinion on how to learn the different subjects. Plan a variety of activities for us to do so we can learn in a new, exciting way. By using some of these ideas, you can help a class pay attention more often. They will more fully understand the material and be able to make it their own.

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formative assessment
Good Teaching

The Worst Advice I’ve Ever Heard About Formative Assessment

by Lori Gracey
written by Lori Gracey

Formative assessment in the classroom has seen an upswing recently with the popularity of Web 2.0 tools such as Kahoot!, Socrative, Plickers, Quizizz, and Formative, to make it easier. With all of these great resources available, it seems like every educator is busy assessing what students know and what they don’t know. And that’s fantastic. (By the way, this isn’t a blog about new tools for assessment. If that’s what you’re looking for, you can find it here.)

However, wonderful tools do not an assessment make, especially if the teacher is following the bad advice I’ve heard below. Here are some ways to guarantee that your formative assessment is not only a waste of time, but also detrimental to real learning.

Use Only One Tool

Find one method of doing formative assessment and use only that one all year. Students don’t really like learning new tools, so why waste the time trying out different websites?

Make It Boring, Like the Real World

formative assessmentThe best formative assessment is complicated and boring. Make sure the tool you use looks like a bubble sheet or Scantron. Don’t include pictures or music or videos. After all, it is assessment and should in no way be fun, entertaining, engaging, or powerful.

Don’t Use It as Formative at All

Save time by doing the formative assessment at the end of the unit and call it your summative assessment. After all, you aren’t going to change what you’re teaching regardless of the results. So finding out what the students already know and understand about the topic is a waste of precious time.

Don’t Use It to Modify Teaching

Do not modify your lesson plans in any way based on the results of the formative assessment. It’s not the real test and so doesn’t carry any weight.

Make Sure the Results Are Secretformative assessment

Keep the results of the formative assessment strictly to yourself; do NOT share it with the students. If they find out they already know some things about the topic, they won’t pay any attention to your great lessons. However, if all of the class does equally poorly on the assessment, be sure to tell them that and explain how hard you’ll have to work to get them to master the material “for THE test.”

On the Other Hand

Of course, if you’re a committed, caring educator, then you would never follow all of this bad advice about formative assessment. Instead, you would use it as a powerful tool to help modify your teaching strategies and activities and to better help your students learn the critical content they need to be successful. You would use a variety of resources, both technological and non-tech, to help your kids remain interested and excited about what they are studying. And you would instantly share the individual results with them so that they can see where they need to go with their own learning.

This blog was updated on September 14, 2021.

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