Teachers

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6 Things To Know Before Becoming A Teacher

6 Things To Know Before Becoming A Teacher

Are you thinking about becoming a teacher? As a young elementary school educator, I've learned some important lessons after being in the field for the past few years.

Some of those lessons include:

  • Answers to questions that no professor lectured about.
  • Issues that no expensive text book explained.
  • Problems I would encounter that were non-existent in the five years of preparation for my career in education.

Want my view of a career in education stripped down? It's definitely not what you think it's going to be. Throw all of your preconceived misconceptions out the window, because that's what they are: misconceptions.

Don't get me wrong—I love my job and I feel lucky to get up every day and teach. But no matter how many internships you do or how many lessons you observe, you will still learn more in a single day in your own classroom than you ever will teaching in someone else's.

Here are some of the many lessons they don't teach you in all of those “Educational Theories" and “Teaching Through the Content Areas" courses…

1. If You're Expecting To Feel Appreciated Every Day, Think Again


Elementary school teacher helps her student color in pictures

The days you go home feeling as if no one cares you poured your heart and soul out on your classroom floor will far outnumber the days you go home feeling someone, anyone, truly appreciates what you do all day.

If you are an exceptional teacher, you will give your all each and every day with the hope that, in some small way, you are making a difference in the lives of your students. They probably won't say "thank you." They probably will grumble and complain about an assignment you worked endlessly on in an attempt to ensure they would find it compelling. But what will get you through your first year, your fifteenth, and your twenty-fifth will not be the unending gratitude and appreciation from your students. Remembering why you chose to teach in the first place will get you through those years.

Remembering will get you through those long days when nothing you planned seems to go right. Remembering will help you when you have reached the end of your rope after a parent with no background in education questions your abilities. If you hold onto that, you'll be the best teacher you can possibly be. If you let go, you'll be miserable (and your students will be too).

2. If You Don't Have Unwavering Patience, Get Out Now


A young teacher is patient while answering a student's question

If you are cut out to be an educator (especially at the elementary level), you will discover you have a seemingly bottomless reserve of patience once you enter your classroom. Students will ask the same question (which you have already answered, by the way) again, and again, and again. Did I mention you already gave them the answer? And it's written on the board? And it's printed on their paper? If the thought of repeating yourself countless times every day makes you crazy, you better get used to it.

And please be forewarned: The patience you had for all other aspects of your life will suddenly be sucked dry. You will find yourself annoyed by little things such as having to wait in line at the grocery store or having to stop to get gas for your car.

3. Learn Everything You Can About Teaching With Technology


A high school teachers shows his students how to use new technology in the classroom

Many of the people at your school will probably want nothing to do with using SMART Boards, tablets, and generative AI. Hopefully, you will. The way students need to be taught has changed over the past few years because the students themselves have changed. Sitting at a desk while someone talks and completing worksheets isn't going to motivate any of today's students. The kids of today need to be constantly stimulated, engaged, and communicating with you and each other.

The best avenue available to teachers is technology. The odds are in your favor here. Chances are, you grew up with computers and other technologies, and your brain is thought to work the same way that your students' brains work.

Surprisingly, there is a huge population of teachers out there who have absolutely no desire to use or learn about technology. I can honestly say I teach in a district where this year many of my colleagues complained about being required to check their school email. Most of them didn't even know how to check email.

You can quickly make yourself a valuable member of the school system by showcasing your knowledge of technology in the classroom—and more importantly, your willingness to learn about and use it.

4. Spend As Much Time In Classrooms As Possible


Student teacher asks the class a question during a lecture

Once you find the grade level you think you'd like to teach, do everything in your power to get an internship at that grade level. If your college offers a year-long internship placement, take it—and be incredibly thankful.

Many schools require a couple of six-week-long student-teaching placements at different grade levels. However, you will never get a real grasp of what your life would be like teaching during a measly six weeks. The best thing I ever did was go to a school that required a year-long internship for a master's degree. Yes, I paid tuition for a year and then worked every day of that year for free; but the experience I gained was more valuable than all of the college classes, observations, and short student-teaching placements put together.

I saw what it is really like to start a school year with a group of students and see how much they grow and learn throughout that entire school year. I was then able to market myself as a first-year teacher with a year of experience under my belt which, believe me, is pretty attractive to administrators with a budget crunch looking for teachers who already know the ropes.

5. If You're Not Happy With Teaching, Don't Do It


Young elementary school teacher reads a book to the class

Regardless of what some people tell you, teaching is not "just a job" (and those same people will say you have the easiest job on earth because you get summer vacation). If you want a 9-to-5 job with weekends off, you better start looking for a new career now.

Sure, there are those teachers who come in each morning with the students and then leave with them in the afternoon, but those teachers really aren't giving it their all.

If you're not in it to be the best teacher you can be, then you shouldn't even be there. Yes, you will get paid far, far less than the amount you deserve. Yes, you will put in 10-hour days and create lesson plans on Saturday afternoons. Yes, you will spend an exorbitant amount of your paycheck on items for your classroom. But you will do all these things because they are a part of doing what you love.

6. Remember Why You Went Into Education In The First Place


Happy high school teacher smiles because she loves her job

Whether it was for a feeling of personal fulfillment or just to see the smiles on students' faces when a concept finally clicks, it's something you're going to need to hold onto in a profession that almost half of all people hired will leave within the first five years. If that doesn't make all the other hoops you'll have to jump through seem worth it, then you don't belong in teaching.

Teaching is one of the most demanding and critical careers that exist today. Think of where you would be without ever having a teacher in your life. Think of a teacher who really made an impact on you—a teacher who changed your life in some way. Chances are, without that teacher, you wouldn't be reading this right now. You just have to decide if you want to be that person for someone else.

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10 Things To Look For In A “Perfect” Classroom



The other day, I was sitting around with other education consultants. And, as those who observe classrooms for a living are apt to do, we started discussing what teaching and learning elements illustrate both quality instruction and superior learning environments. What elements might define the “perfect” classroom?

Even though most educators live at “proficient” and only visit “well-developed” practices, for reasons both within and outside one’s locus of control, I believe a conversation on how a utopian classroom might look, in theory, is also worth having here.

The Three Questions That All Instruction Must Address


​All too often, educators get caught up thinking about the activities that students are going to do without first considering if these activities are aligned with learning goals. Stop. Think strategically. Review the basic, ground-level parameters for quality teaching and learning first.

At their core, every lesson must answer three basic questions in this order:

  1. What do I want my students to know and do?
  2. How will I know students know and can do the learning objective of the lesson?
  3. How can I vest students in the process of learning in ways/activities that are aligned with the learning objective?

Once we have a clear understanding that every lesson should answer the above questions, sequentially, we can then consider the elements for what might be the “perfect classroom.” Here are the 10 things that I would want to see in paradise:

1. Clear Classroom Expectations And Procedures


Empty classroom with math written on the chalkboard

Sometimes, I will sit down in a classroom before students arrive back from specials, lunch, recess, their last class, etc. I do this because I want to see if there are clear policies and procedures in place; a well-organized classroom is one where we do not lose one second of teaching time. Is there an introductory activity (“Do Now”) that students must complete as they enter the room? Do students know where in the classroom to pick up their writing journals? Is there a clear format/agenda to how the lesson will proceed—introduction, mini-lecture, student practice, and summary? At the end of class, is there a summary learning activity? A well-ordered classroom is usually a happier one with fewer student behavioral issues.

2. Academic Rigor


Teacher boosts student engagement in her classroom

Every lesson should have a clear learning objective; however, we can’t end the discussion on learning objectives there. Learning objectives must be cognitively complex; that is, they must extend our students’ thinking beyond rote memorization if students are to become critical consumers of information in society as well as problem solvers.

When crafting learning objectives—which teachers should also post and discuss with students—I want teachers to consider the depth of knowledge—mental demand—that they will require of students: the questions they will ask students to answer, tasks they will ask students to complete, etc. For example, we can have high school students memorize tips on writing a business proposal or, better yet, to have cognitive complexity, we can have students write and present their own business proposals.

3. Varied And Ongoing Assessment


Students take a test/quiz or complete a worksheet during class

Assessment does not always have to be a formal paper and pencil test that comes at the end of each unit. In every lesson, every day, I want to see teachers checking on student understanding in both informal and formative ways.

Think about driving for a moment. While one may have driving directions to help them reach their destination, sometimes detours and circle-backs are necessary to ultimately get to where one wants to go. Just like in driving, sometimes student misconceptions will force us as teachers to go slower, model a procedure multiple times, or find another way to present a concept. A teacher can only know if they must pivot through ongoing assessment—questioning/cold calling, signaling, polling, etc.

4. Student Engagement


Students listen to a teacher during a classroom lesson

I once worked with a middle school teacher who had students produce a morning chat show (“Good Morning Athens”) when they were learning about ancient Greece; the students came alive. While standardized paper and pencil tests aren’t going away anytime soon, and students do need to be prepared for this type of assessment, assessing students authentically—project-based learning, applying scientific/math problems to real-world situations, designing models, creating multimedia projects, and engaging students in role-plays/problem of practice consultancies—can help teachers better assess how well students can transfer knowledge to new situations. Such activities can also be designed in ways that are kinesthetic, visual, and auditory in nature, allowing our students the opportunity to practice learning from multiple angles.

If teachers do the above, we should not see students disrupting and/or avoiding tasks but rather students invested in their learning and on-task in their interactions with peers; even better if students are assessing their individual and collective growth and achievement.

5. Use Of Multimodal Resources


Teacher increases student engagement in her classroom

The textbook is not the curriculum. However, I often find myself reminding teachers of this fact. It’s ok to augment textbooks and written curriculum with age-appropriate multimodal resources that may further engage students in learning. Enrich the type of student-facing materials you, as teacher, provide. Have non-print materials such as video clips (not full movies); bring in primary source materials like photographs; use infographics, graphs, charts, maps; integrate audio recordings, podcasts, artifacts; and utilize math manipulatives, etc.

6. Purposeful Use Of Classroom Space


Empty school classroom

Teachers need to be mindful of how much space their desk and personal effects are taking up within a classroom. I distinctly remember working with one teacher whose room was covered by Denver Broncos memorabilia. Yes, educators, show your personalities but in a confined way.

In so doing, teachers may find that they have the floor space to divide their classroom into learning “zones” for individual, small group, and whole group student learning. Classroom walls are also a precious gift if they are used to reinforce literacy (word walls), exhibit student work that demonstrates mastery of standards (portfolio assessment), post directions/steps to common math problems, and display anchor charts such as reading annotation codes as well as performance rubrics, etc. Configurable ergonomic furniture can also allow for maximum student mobility while smaller teacher desks with wheels can be positioned next to students.

7. Personalization Of Learning


Student does his homework

Struggling students and, on the other end of the spectrum, bored students are both a recipe for disengagement from school. When I observe a classroom, I like to ask students what they are doing. When students show me their work, I can see if this work is differentiated—meaning are high-interest/low-level reading texts offered and scaffolds provided to help struggling students meet grade-appropriate learning objectives? Are multiple resources and/or is text being provided at a higher reading level to students who have already met the objective? While some teachers may say that personalization of learning takes too much effort, we need to invest the time if we want to ensure that all our students have an equitable opportunity to learn.

8. Literacy Connections


Teacher reads an assignment to the class

The reality is that we must be mindful that we are all literacy teachers. If students don’t understand what they are reading, they will not understand the subject-specific content. In lower elementary school, I look to see both the teaching of phonics AND whole language explicitly. In upper elementary through high school, literacy should be weaved into content/subject-specific learning using learning tools such as Cornell Notes, annotations while reading, and other content-specific vocabulary development activities. This is critically important if we are serving struggling readers, students with special needs, and/or multi-lingual learners.

9. Social-Emotional Connections


We all know that, in the wake of the pandemic, students are struggling with their mental health. We also know that bullying that starts online often finds its way into our schools. In a post-pandemic classroom, we should see teachers developing multi-layered lessons and activities where students can develop the self-awareness that leads to strong self-identity, establish interpersonal skills that nurture positive social relationships, and demonstrate intentional decision-making skills.

The above can come in the form of activities that ask students to self- and peer-assess as well as through more extended student-informed portfolio assessment and student conferencing activities. Teachers and students also can shout out positive student behavior when they see it, particularly during lesson summary activities.

10. Purposeful Use Of EdTech


Students in a classroom with laptops take advantage of EdTech

Let’s remain calm over the advent of AI. While AI comes with risks, it also provides teachers with, for example, the opportunity to develop differentiated lessons more efficiently and can help students research answers to questions they may pose across the depth of knowledge continuum. AI can even help us adjust the reading level of texts for students. The uses are almost endless.

Although AI has captured our attention as educators, EdTech is more than just AI. Many 21st-century schools, for instance, use Google Classrooms to organize learning digitally. Within moderation, EdTech—digital gamification in particular—also can increase student engagement through both cooperation and competition. Consider then the diverse needs of students when integrating EdTech. EdTech should be a value-add not just a mindless distraction. Make learning equitable, efficient, effective, and/or engaging through its use—think “4Es.”

Choose What Works For Students


Happy students and teacher celebrate in the classroom

Schools and teachers have constraints; so, don’t fret about doing everything all at once. Still, knowing the different elements of good practice can only further our mission to help all students grow and achieve; teachers should make a conscious effort to infuse their classrooms with as many of these elements at one time that make sense and all over time.

John Schembari is a school improvement coach. You can reach out to him on LinkedIn.

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10 Things To Look For In A …



This is for all the teachers who are thinking about making a career change and aren't sure what to do with their transferable skills.

In my experience working with teachers inside the Work It Daily community, these are the best jobs for teachers leaving education:

Strategic Or Conceptual Selling Jobs


@j.t.odonnell Replying to @patsrimbau Job For Teachers Leaving Education #teachersoftiktok #teacher #education #job #jobtok #career #careertok ♬ original sound - J.T. O'Donnell

Not every teacher, but many teachers are really good at what we call strategic or conceptual selling. This isn't the sales where you're cold-calling or knocking on doors. This is complex selling where you listen to the customer's needs and then help them envision and understand how your software, product, service—whatever you're selling—will work for them.

Strategic or conceptual selling jobs require somebody to be great at educating and they need to have the right personality. Teachers have usually dealt with kids their whole life, so dealing with adult learners seems easier to them and they end up excelling in these roles. I can't tell you how many teachers I've seen leave teaching and make big money doing this. Strategic or conceptual selling might not be right for every teacher making a career change, but it might be right for you.

If you want to know if you're a fit for strategic or conceptual selling, I built a FREE 20-question quiz that you can take that helps you determine your top workplace personas. Your workplace personas are how you like to create value on the job and how you'll feel satisfied doing work. Those will dictate the kinds of careers that you're fit for. And if you get educator and then other things like visionary or super connector in your quiz results, those kinds of combinations make you ideal for strategic or conceptual selling.

You are never too old to switch careers, but you need to know how you like to create value to get out there and sell those transferable skills to employers. Because again, they're going to have to understand that value and they're not going to just see it on a piece of paper like a resume. You're going to have to explain it to them. And this kind of quiz can help.

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The Best Jobs For Teachers Leaving Education

6 Things To Do To Prepare For Your Classroom Observation



Is it spring yet? Just observe any school hallway to figure this out. Each spring, there is usually a flurry of activity among school administrators as they hurriedly shuffle from one classroom to the next desperately trying to record/file all their required observations by their state deadline.

In New Jersey public district schools, for example, untenured teachers are evaluated formally at least three times a year with tenured teachers being observed at least once each year. This is a similar practice in other states as well.

So, what can you as a teacher do to prepare for formal observations besides downing an entire bottle of Maalox antacid tablets?

Announced Observations


Teacher gets evaluated before a classroom observation

If the observation is announced in advance, teachers can sit down with their evaluator to discuss the upcoming observation and review both their upcoming lesson plan as well as any student assessment data that will impact the amount of student differentiation and/or scaffolding of learning. Whether announced or unannounced, teachers should also be provided the opportunity to debrief their observations afterward so as to improve teaching practice moving forward.

Unannounced Observations


School files for teacher observations

The process for conducting announced observations is straightforward and often provides teachers with an opportunity to prepare a lesson to the best of their ability—i.e., “the dog and pony show”—since they know when their administrator will be coming to observe and might also know what the observer wants to see.

However, it also is important for administrators to assess the quality of everyday teaching and learning; hence why many observations of teacher practice are unannounced. While unannounced observations preclude the opportunity to discuss evaluator expectations for the lesson upfront, teachers need not lose sleep over not knowing what to expect in terms of administrator expectations.

As a former administrator who regularly evaluated teaching practice, here are six things that I looked for when observing teaching practice and that you might keep in mind when preparing for an unannounced classroom observation:

Teach Bell To Bell


Teacher calls on a student in her classroom

I can tell you that one of my biggest pet peeves when observing instruction was lost instructional time. I hate when students enter a classroom where there is no introductory task posted on the board (The Do Now); I also become frustrated when class ends early and students are milling around waiting for the end bell to ring. This lost instructional time compounds when added up across classrooms/periods each day.

Instead, plan with timing and transitions in mind. Have students enter and complete an introductory task (5 minutes). Then, engage in a mini-lecture—usually the new information and/or directions for the upcoming student activity (no more than 10-15 minutes). After this, allow the bulk of class time to be used for student practice/peer discussion (20-25 minutes) and then follow up with a culminating/summary activity (10 minutes). To help yourself, set a timer for each section and consider posting the agenda/flow for the class from section to section on the board. Before long, students will come to recognize where they should be within the flow of the lesson and, often, will let you know if you are running behind.

Know What You Want Students To Know And Do


Empty classroom with math written on the chalkboard

Every teacher and student action within the lesson should be driven by the learning objective—i.e., what we want students to know and be able to do at the end of the lesson. This needs to be made clear to students at the beginning of the lesson. Have the learning objective posted on the board when students enter. Discuss the learning objective with students at the beginning of the lesson. Also, consider having students reflect on whether the objective was met during the lesson summary/closure such as by engaging in a brief popcorn discussion and/or in writing through an exit ticket activity.

Even when teachers are mindful in posting and discussing learning objectives, they might not consider the cognitive lift in which they are asking students to engage. Consider using the Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrix when designing learning objectives/activities that have students both deepening their depth of knowledge as well as synthesizing, evaluating, and creating knowledge as opposed to merely identifying it; Bloom’s Taxonomy meets Webb’s Depth of Knowledge Theory.

For students not academically ready to meet the demands of such a heavy cognitive ask, do not “dumb down” the expectation for these students. Instead, provide scaffolds and supports so students can meet the expectation.

Check For Student Understanding


Students take a test/quiz or complete a worksheet during class

Assessment is much more than quizzes and tests that come at the end of learning. Show your administrator that you are constantly taking the pulse of student retention of learning using ongoing checks on student understanding—i.e., cold calling, signaling, and/or choral response. Equally important, when students demonstrate a lack of understanding, do not charge on with the delivery of instruction. Stop. Reteach that point. In other words, show your administrator that you can pivot in the moment to meet immediate student needs.

Anticipate what you will do when students fail these checks on understanding. Again, do not just push on. Instead, ask a few students until you get the correct response and then have those who did not know the answer repeat the response of peers who did. Have confused students “call on a friend” to help them respond. Checks on understanding are particularly important to implement before students are released to practice their new learning—in other words, during the introduction as well as the mini-lecture phase of a lesson.

Ask The Right Questions The Right Way


Teacher asks questions while being observed by an administrator

Too often, teachers do not plan, in advance, the questions that they will ask students and, as a result, questions rarely require students to engage in heavy cognitive lift. Administrators observing your lessons will want to see that you prepared your student-facing questions to engage students in both discussion and/or debate as well as to assess overall student learning. During the introductory and/or mini-lecture portion of a lesson, it is acceptable that questions be more factual and/or convergent as these types of questions will help teachers to ascertain student basic knowledge and understanding of key concepts and task directions. Once students are released to practice/engage in their learning, however, teachers will want students to reflect upon more divergent and/or evaluative type questions.

Another way that teachers can get into trouble with questioning is not allowing students enough “think time” to ponder the questions being asked of them before answering the questions themselves on behalf of the students. Embed “wait time” of 3-5 seconds after asking students a question so that students can reflect more deeply upon what is being asked of them. This should improve the quality of student responses. Also, allow wait time after a student speaks and before a follow-up question is asked.

Engage Students Throughout The Lesson


Students pay attention to the teacher in the classroom

As an administrator observing teachers, another area of concern for me was when teachers never released students to practice their learning and, instead, held students hostage to a never-ending whole class mini-lecture. If I was bored, I could leave. Students, however, could not. Another missed opportunity for student engagement that I have seen repeated is when teachers release students to independently complete worksheets, during the student practice phase of a lesson, which are then reviewed as a whole class with the teacher leading the discussion one problem/question at a time.

There indeed are times when students will need to learn independently before engaging with peers. However, administrators observing lessons also will want to see how teachers have planned out student pair and small group work as a means through which students can discuss learning collaboratively. I often suggest to teachers that they adapt the National School Reform Faculty Protocols, meant for teacher collaboration, to be student facing. As students work in pairs or small groups, the teacher can/should be walking around the classroom addressing any misconceptions and taking anecdotal notes that the teacher might then want to address with students after the pair or group activity concludes. Administrators also would be excited to see how teachers have planned out student rotation work.

Scaffold And/Or Extend The Learning


Teacher helps a student in his classroom

During the observed lesson, teachers may notice administrators asking students about what they are doing. Administrators are doing this to gain a sense of how well teachers have used student achievement data to place students in groups and how the learning process, product, and/or content is being adjusted, or differentiated, for students with different needs.

Teachers often get scared when they hear the word “differentiation” because they think this means that they need to show their administrator a separate instructional plan for each student in their class. This is not the case. Rather, most administrators observing instruction are looking to see if teachers have considered the needs of the different instructional GROUPINGS in the classroom—i.e., those below readiness, at readiness, and above readiness to meet the posted lesson objective and/or unit of study standards. This last sentence is important—per posted lesson learning objective and/or unit standards. Administrators want to see that you are routinely considering the needs/supports required by students and then equally considering when students no longer need those supports.

If your school is not already using some sort of formal common diagnostic assessment, such as i-Ready or NWEA MAP, you can determine if your students are ready to meet the learning objective and/or unit standards by giving a brief pre-assessment before the lesson or the unit of study. Then, use that pre-assessment data to place students within their appropriate group and determine how you will adjust content, process, and /or product for each group of learners. At the end of the lesson/unit, you can then reassess students—conduct a post-assessment which can be as simple as an exit ticket—to see if and how instructional groupings have shifted; hopefully, there will be increased student growth and achievement after the lesson.

Other Helpful Tips


Teacher looks at her lesson plan during an observation

If teachers really want to impress administrators observing their classroom instruction, consider placing copies of your lesson plans in a folder attached to the wall outside/just inside your classroom that the administrator can pick up without disturbing you/your instruction. Administrators also like to see the literacy connections that students are making, across content areas, as well as how teachers are considering student cultural and background knowledge in their lesson planning. I enjoyed seeing/hearing when teachers were able to make real-world connections in what students were learning.

John Schembari is a school improvement coach. If you would like additional ideas on how to impact student lives without sacrificing your own, and have a life teaching, check out his quick hack teaching courses here. You can also reach out to him on LinkedIn.

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6 Things To Do To Prepare For …

How To Motivate Disengaged Teachers



During the pandemic, it was understandable that the focus for almost everybody, including educators, was on the health and well-being of friends and family. Post-pandemic, however, I’m noticing a troubling trend: some educators are still suffering from an ambition deficit when it comes to teaching.

Just the other day, for example, one teacher told me that they called out of work because the previous day there was a field trip and their feet still hurt. In professional trainings I have facilitated lately, I also have had teachers leave early because they felt “too tired” to go on. Teachers told me they were leaving; they didn’t ask. We are definitely in what Robert Glazer calls an “Ambition Recession.”

To be fair, there are many valid reasons why some teachers are apathetic and/or leaving the profession. I previously wrote about some of these reasons in my Work It Daily article "3 Reasons for the Big Quit in Teaching." Yet, if we are to help students to grow and achieve, we need to get teachers back on the school improvement bus. However, this is not just the responsibility of individual teachers. What might school and district administrators do to motivate teachers to make a positive change?

Recently, I had the chance to listen to an episode of the New Yorker Radio Hour; the theme for that episode was change. During that episode, dance choreographer Akram Khan suggested that there are four—in my opinion, interrelated—reasons why people change. While he may have been talking about re-envisioning the ballet “Giselle” for the modern stage, I believe his thoughts are relevant to those in education who are charged with motivating teachers to participate, more fully, within the teaching profession.

Teachers Will Change When They Must


Teacher helps a student

The grass is not always greener on the other side. Now that many educators have moved out of teaching roles and have taken opportunities in the private sector (particularly in EdTech), we may see a boomerang effect. There is a certain amount of financial stability as a teacher. A teacher may not be making as much money as they would like but it is a constant. In contrast, when one moves into the private sector, financial compensation can ebb and flow erratically particularly when the threat of recession looms like grey clouds on the horizon. Teachers, like anyone, might then be happy to have a job and do more to maintain it.

Teachers Will Change When They See Enough To Be Inspired


Teacher smiles at her students

Traditionally, many teachers have been isolated within the four walls of their classrooms. Most still need to find adult coverage of their classrooms to take even a short bathroom break. How then might school leaders make internal exemplars of good teaching and learning more visible across the faculty? New Beginnings Charter School, in Brooklyn, NY, for instance, produces a weekly digital staff instructional newsletter that features classroom videos of their teachers using best instructional practices. They and ITAVA, in Queens, NY, engage in lesson study and open up model classrooms for teacher intervisitation. Lesson study is not the only way to coalesce teachers around a common goal; there are many additional ways to make teacher teams impactful.

The key here is that administrators need to plan deeply; they need to develop schedules that release teachers from the chains of their classrooms so that teachers can visit other classrooms and/or participate on ongoing teacher teams. Inspiration also requires triangulation of teacher development supports. For example, instructional coaches might consider referencing support materials/exemplars of best practice, provided in digital newsletters, during ongoing coaching feedback conversations. Help teachers become aware of where they can go for resources to improve their teaching craft and have multiple pathways for teachers to get there.

Teachers Will Change When They Learn Enough To Want It


Teacher educates her students on technology

When I worked with the Cristo Rey School Network, we were interested in learning how best to develop internal tutoring programs that would well serve students and prevent their exit due to poor academic performance. One of the most powerful tools we had in replicating a quality tutoring program, across the network, was the ability to draw upon the expertise of one of our schools that already had such a program in place. Providing a space for all our school leaders, and teachers involved in the tutoring of our students, to engage in problem of practice protocols proved pivotal for the replication of this one school’s tutoring model across multiple school sites. As our school leaders and teachers learned more about what already was working in-house, the enthusiasm to replicate said practices was infectious.

Networked learning can be internal—as in the case of Cristo Rey above—and/or external. The Canopy Project, a joint project between Transcend Education and CRPE, has, for example, over 200 member/school organizations interested in building transformative education environments focused on equity. It aims to do this by collaborating, not competing, on the development of best school design. How might school leaders include more teachers within internal and/or external networks of practice? The models for learning networks are out there.

Teachers Will Change When They Receive Enough To Be Able


Teacher educates his students on a new concept

Asked another way, are administrators and/or instructional coaches giving enough so that teachers develop efficacy? I’ve written elsewhere on how we might say that student learning is at the core of our work as educators but, in reality, this is not evident when we, as managers of learning, make time for everything but instructional observation and teacher coaching. Therefore, administrators would do well in developing a standing weekly schedule for themselves that prioritizes both informal classroom observations and feedback/coaching sessions with each teacher on staff. Move operational tasks to when instructional time is over for the day. Paul Bambrick-Santoyo discusses this, in great detail, in his book Leverage Leadership.

Kim Marshall further suggests that administrators, during mini observations, not write notes. Rather, later in the day, administrators might use a one-page staff list to record the day, date, and most relevant points from each visit. Later still, they can add a checkmark when feedback has been given to the observed teacher. Further, share anonymous instructional data, across classrooms, with teaching staff. Help teachers to understand why certain instructional priorities exist and solicit teacher participation in responding to the data.

If you would like additional ideas on how to impact student lives without sacrificing your own, and have a life teaching, check out my quick hack teaching courses here. You can also reach me on LinkedIn.

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How To Motivate Disengaged Teachers

How To Help Newly Arrived English Language Learners Thrive In The Classroom



“Don’t just assume a student is lazy or just doesn’t care about what they are learning. They might understand the content you are teaching just not how to express themselves,” says Uswai Husna, education major at Brooklyn College and America Needs You member. Husna should know. As a child, Husna moved back and forth between the United States, ultimately settling here in 2012, and Marsad, Pakistan—a place of sanctuary for Afghani refugees fleeing the Taliban.

Despite today being a confident and erudite young woman in English, it still took Husna five years to feel comfortable using English as a medium to express herself. Husna, a former English language learner (ELL) and student with interrupted formal education (SIFE), cites the relationship that she developed with her former teacher, Michelle Ortiz (quoted later in this article), as being an instrumental factor in her ultimate success as well as going to a middle school with a large international student body that had similar backgrounds and experiences to that of Husna.

Husna’s story is not unique. New York City, alone, is integrating more than 7,000 students from migrant families into classrooms this school year (22-23) with some of these students also making up the 61,000 people in the New York City shelter system.

Like in New York City, educators, city officials, and non-profits around the country are scrambling to support the literacy needs of newly arrived English language learners. They also must concurrently address the social-emotional needs of the approximately 10% to 20% of newly arrived ELLs arriving as SIFE students. While the majority of ELLs are not coming from a situation where their education has been interrupted, those who are can present even greater teaching challenges for educators not accustomed to teaching newly arrived ELLs.

What Advocates Say We Must Do To Support The Needs Of These  Children


Diverse, multilingual/multicultural students learn new technology

Fen Chou

Program Director, Council of Chief State School Officers

Ensuring meaningful participation of English learners—who represent 10% (or 5.1 million students) of the total K-12 student population and have diverse linguistic, cultural, and academic backgrounds—is a core concern in the delivery of K-12 public education across the country. At the start of their educational experience in the United States, these students face the challenge of learning English so they can fully access academic content. They need specific supports and services from schools for success. The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) is committed to supporting state education agencies as they work with districts and schools to ensure English learners get the best possible educational opportunities and graduate from high school on time, prepared for college and careers.

In the past three years, the COVID-19 pandemic compelled state leaders to develop new instructional delivery models and support teachers, students, and families as they shifted from in-person to remote and hybrid learning environments. These shifts have presented many challenges to educational equity, especially for English learners and their families, who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

However, these disruptions to school also presented an opportunity. We encourage states to integrate technology in new ways, revisit their programs and services for English learners and families, monitor the effectiveness of English learner programs, and provide educators with a chance to ensure that they are supporting access and equity for English learners. Specific recommendations are provided in CCSSO’s State Leadership Guide to help state education agency leaders engage stakeholders in continuous-improvement processes focused on English learner programs and services.

Amber Crowell Kelleher

Executive Director, TESOL International Association

TESOL International Association values and fosters diverse and inclusive participation within the field of English language teaching. For more than 50 years, TESOL has globally promoted equitable representation of, engagement of, inclusion of, and access to multilingual learners of English (MLE). We do this with the support of more than 150,000 educators in more than 160 countries. Simply put, TESOL advances linguistic expertise in multilingual contexts through professional learning, research, standards, and advocacy.

We strongly support and advocate for asset-based approaches for MLEs that serve the learners and their families. Regardless of the language learning context, learning an additional language starts with a student’s culture and heritage or home language. In particular, refugees and asylees, who may have limited or interrupted formal education and may be unfamiliar with U.S. social and academic cultural norms, benefit from an asset-based approach that values and draws from their home language and culture. Home language supports, such as encouragement in translanguaging and offering multiple ways for students to share their knowledge, can empower newcomer MLEs. Such students may also benefit from specialized supports that include trauma-informed instruction and social-emotional and mental health supports. Teachers can also help establish a safe space by teaching MLEs the vocabulary to express their emotional state, such as anger, sadness, fear, or frustration.

When U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona referred to being bilingual as a superpower, he not only highlighted multilingual learning but also elevated the voices of MLEs, their families, their communities, and their collective experiences and stories. What students and their families bring to the learning process from their home language and culture serves as an asset to the student, their teachers, and the larger context of learning.

Tim Boals

Executive Director, WIDA

I believe teachers like to see all their students thrive. This is why they teach. Nonetheless, myths about language learning, the role of culture or home languages, or about the need for language or content remediation and what that involves persist, and often get in the way of creating and sustaining real opportunities for multilingual learners to learn.

Lately, some politicians and commentators suggest that schools should push equal opportunity but not equity. Equity is bad, they say, because it implies that we want students to all be the same. I disagree. The notion of equity for multilingual learners can be traced to Lau vs. Nichols (1974) where the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that giving multilingual learners equal treatment in the same classroom was not, in fact, equal, because without proper support multilingual learners would not understand the same lesson as the English speakers or proficient English readers would. Equity, in this context, is akin to getting the correct eyeglasses. We all need a different prescription to have an equal opportunity to see clearly. If we follow that analogy in the case of multilingual learners, we must provide them equity in the classroom through support that acknowledges where they are on the continuum of learning English, as well as how their home languages, cultures, and individual identities can be used as assets.

For a beginner to intermediate English learner, we need to modify or scaffold the English language and literacy demands of those programs. Even students at more advanced levels of English proficiency often need some targeted support. This is what we mean by equity. There are numerous ways to do that, but we know traditional high school lectures and assignments in unsupported English won’t get us there.

Always encourage educators to maintain a can-do lens when thinking about these students. This can be accomplished by considering the cultural and linguistic assets students bring to class and building upon those assets. Consider how the can-do lens helps value and support students’ home languages and cultures to the maximum extent possible. Home and community language and culture are a big part of students’ assets and identities, and we need to nurture and build upon them. Emphasize how can-do also means to not over-emphasize grammatical correctness. Students do need targeted feedback on their progress when learning English, but this should be done strategically—since making mistakes is part of learning and we should help them understand that. Otherwise, while comparing themselves with others, they will feel they cannot successfully take on those academic identities or roles.

Promote learning about how to hold and maintain academic conversations. This is a skill worth teaching and practicing. It is far more effective than traditional question-and-answer techniques found in many classrooms. Accelerate content learning, rather than focusing on language remediation. Foster collaboration between language support teachers and content or classroom teachers. Involve, engage, and empower families to participate in and better understand their children’s educational path. Encourage extra-curricular activities and participation in the arts, in and outside of school.

Developing Lessons That Support Newly Arrived ELLs  


Multilingual students with their teacher in the classroom

So, on a practical level then, what should educators do to support multilingual learners? Michelle Ortiz, ENL Coordinator in the NYCDOE and adjunct professor at Brooklyn College, suggests the following:

One strategy that I recommend to teachers who have various levels of ELLs in their class is to first draft their lesson without differentiation. Then, go back into the lesson and ask, "How can I provide an entry point for my entering and emerging level students?" If they aren’t sure, I recommend applying some general best practices for students at this level. This includes adding visuals to slides, translating essential vocabulary words, and allowing students to discuss the content in their native language. For example, during a gallery walk activity, allow students to discuss the images and write notes in their language. This provides an entry point for students to access the lesson by using visuals and research shows strong correlations to academic success when ELLs utilize their first language.

When ELLs are at the transitioning and expanding level, teachers need to keep in mind that students at this level have a strong command of social English, but often struggle with academic reading and writing. Research shows that it can take five to seven years for students to acquire and apply academic language. As a result, teachers can differentiate their lessons to ensure students can build upon their reading and writing skills. Teachers can scaffold complex texts by using close reading strategies along with targeting academic vocabulary. Students may often continue to lack essential background knowledge to comprehend a text, especially if varying cultural norms are found within the text. Therefore, strategies such as using a pre-reading assessment and surveys will help to assess knowledge and provide a focus for teaching background knowledge. Teachers should also consider using graphic organizers, jigsaw activities, and creating leveled notes and outlines to support their students as they build upon their reading and writing skills.

In supporting newly arrived ELLs, who are also SIFE, here is what Judith O’Loughlin and Brenda Custodio, co-authors of Students with Interrupted Formal Education: Bridging Where They Are and What They Need by Corwin Press (2017), say are some surefire strategies:

SIFE (Students with Interrupted Formal Education), by definition, have experienced gaps in their formal first-language education. They need to be supported by language and content educators who understand their situation and are willing to provide extra academic, as well as social and emotional supports to assist them and help fill in those gaps. Students who have experienced trauma need supports, such as consistent routines in the classroom that help them feel comfortable and safe. Writing assignments on the board in print, not cursive, and providing models or several examples of assignment expectations at their level of learning, ensures that students understand what is expected, eliminating panic and confusion. Permitting students to use their first language for support in bilingual classes or using translanguaging in content classes may be critical. At times, peer assistance or a “buddy” may be needed. For students with extremely limited previous education, extra classes to build basic literacy and numeracy skills may be necessary. For too many secondary students, the lowest math available is algebra and SIFE may not have the foundational math skills or foundational knowledge to be successful in mathematics. And finally, it is important that modifications, addressing their current support needs, but also changing as SIFE become more proficient academically, should be provided for students with academic gaps while their literacy and content knowledge develop.

John Schembari is a school improvement coach. If you would like additional ideas on how to impact student lives without sacrificing your own, and have a life teaching, check out his quick hack teaching courses here. You can also reach out to him on LinkedIn.

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How To Help Newly Arrived English Language …

Monday.com: Project Management Made Easy



As an educator together with administrator, I enjoy assisting young adults as nicely as adult learners along with their academic journey. Inside my role, I oversee guidelines and procedures that assist support student learning and additionally success. Therefore, I apply multiple innovation projects to back up students and meet all of them where they are.

Monday. apresentando Is good for Managing Projects


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The solution is Monday. contendo. The Work OS function management platform helps our team manage projects not to mention workflows more efficiently. The particular project management includes this scope, time, and spending budget.

What My partner and i like about Monday. junto de is that is a new very simple and intuitive helpful work platform that utilizes apps and integrations to be able to create a custom work flow for the project. The versatility helps me (as well as my team) keep on track and the integrations with apps such since Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Googlemail, and Excel, permit me to very easily continue working with the best tools from within often the platform.

Wednesday. com Capabilities


Project manager purpose project management software

Since My spouse and i work on several tasks, Monday. com software allows me assign tasks and also prioritize what's most essential for the team for you to execute. To do this particular, I break down your components by color as well as timeline. For example, our own digital badge project any short implementation timeline, breakthrough, and deliverables. The software allowed me to control the entire workload almost all in one space.

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​My biggest takeaway: the exact platform fosters creative effort with my team and then other departments. More significantly, the collaboration is smooth and supplies visibility into the very progress of our own work. This saves time. You might want to give this a try!

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Monday.com: Project Management Made Easy

How And Why All Teachers Must Teach Vocabulary



Being able to both comprehend and write increasingly complex text and participate in oral discourse starts with a knowledge of words. Yet far too many of our students stumble in expressing their thoughts, understanding the written intent of others, or even understanding what is being asked of them in written prompts because they do not have nor are growing in their awareness of vocabulary.

The reasons why our students may lack robust vocabularies are varied. Some students are coming to English as second language learners. Others may have or have not been exposed to a varied vocabulary in their homes. Still, others may be hamstrung by the way we have been teaching reading in our schools: phonics and/or decoding in the early years—the debate still rages—being phased out in favor of specific academic content instruction in middle and high school. I, myself, can think back to my early days of teaching 6th grade when I had a student come into my class the day after they arrived from Vietnam with no English-speaking skills. Although she received push out ELL services, if only I knew then how to better scaffold the learning through language supports, perhaps she might have been able to be more fully present in class.

While we are all literacy teachers, tell that to some middle and high school science, math, and/or social studies teachers and you might be told in return that they teach their subject content not English. Still, how can one teach content well if students do not understand what they are reading? Also, how can students write in full paragraphs if they don’t know words?

Teaching Vocabulary Helps Students Develop Content Knowledge


Teacher teaches a young student vocabulary

Think strategically about how vocabulary might help your students master content-specific standards. As a consultant, I’m always recommending that teachers utilize Harvey Silver’s vocabulary CODE activities. These activities assist students in connecting vocabulary to key concepts, in organizing/categorizing words, in deep processing words, and in exercising the mind through exercise and practice.

While we see word walls in many classrooms these days, which is an excellent strategy that compares words to units of study, we should not stop there. Sadly, this is often the case. Word walls are NOT for classroom decoration only; students need to practice these words intentionally during instruction. One way to do this, for instance, might be to have students describe how a set of three words from the word wall might be related (the three-way tie strategy).

Teachers can also gamify the learning of vocabulary by giving “points” for student use of specific vocabulary within their written responses. I would often give my students a word splash activity at both the beginning and end of a lesson. In this strategy, students are given a writing prompt as well as a series of words to use in their response. Students are then told to use as many words as they can in their response.

Comparing the quality of the response/vocabulary produced at the beginning of the lesson, before instruction, with the same prompt response provided at the end of the lesson can be a brilliant way to check on student growth in understanding during a lesson. Have students used more vocabulary in the second response? Are connections between concepts stronger after instruction than before?

Vocabulary Development Strategies Are For ALL Students


I recently had the opportunity to present these vocabulary development strategies at a middle/high school workshop. By engaging in a 4As discussion protocol, we were able to surface assumptions made by Mr. Silver in his work, where we agreed, where we argued/or disagreed, and where we might apply his vocabulary development strategies in our own lesson planning.

Several concerns and/or misconceptions emerged, one being that the study of vocabulary is only for students who are underperforming. To be true, studying vocabulary can assist ELLs and other students below mastery to meet learning objectives and, as such, is an excellent scaffold. At the same time, depending on the complexity of the words themselves, vocabulary development strategies can help more advanced students solidify and extend their knowledge of key concepts/themes in their learning.

To bring in higher-order thinking and learning within vocabulary development activities, consider the level of complexity of the words that students are studying. Per the work of Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, and Linda Kucan, in Bringing Words to Life, we can think of vocabulary as being in three tiers: tier one (everyday words like tree or cat), tier two (school words like analyze or discuss), and tier three words (content-specific words like reformation or reconstruction). I would argue that middle and high schools could consider the academic words that they want the entire school community practicing with students (tier 2) and have this language posted/discussed throughout the school community while teachers could not only be promoting the use of these tier 2 vocabulary words in class but also be working with students to increase their knowledge of specific content vocabulary (tier 3). As an aside, I also use Robert Marzano’s work, Building Academic Vocabulary, with teachers. Most notably, his lists of academic words in each content area.

Making Time For Vocabulary Instruction


Teacher teaches his students vocabulary during class

Teachers in the training also surfaced the question of time. When there is so much to teach, where is the time to front-load all this vocabulary? Consider when it is and is not appropriate to use a vocabulary development strategy with all students at the same time. However, also consider how individual students could practice vocabulary on their own. For instance, I used to always keep blank copies of the Frayer Model available in the classroom so that students could practice vocabulary on an as-needed basis. Students could also be practicing vocabulary at rotating stations as well as completing other tasks if the lesson is planned accordingly. Lastly, just like we do not want all middle/high school teachers giving a test on the same day, confer with teaching colleagues so that the front-loading of vocabulary is staggered across classes.

If you would like additional ideas on how to impact student lives without sacrificing your own, and have a life teaching, check out my quick hack teaching courses, including on student engagement, here. You can also reach me on LinkedIn.

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How And Why All Teachers Must Teach …

8 Surefire Ways To Do Student Engagement Well



I have had moments in my schooling that shine brightly—playing a card game in Mr. Ritter's 8th grade social studies class with the true purpose being to show just how difficult it was to survive the Holocaust as well as having an opportunity to create our own country using the same economic, social, and political characteristics that define authentic nation states. I also remember Ms. Ziemba's 9th grade English class where she would routinely pause our reading of fiction to allow us to predict what would happen next as well as my foreign language classes with Mrs. Kane—"Madame"—and Mr. Tellis where we would act out every day conversational scenarios using tone, props, and facial expressions.

While the content we were covering differed in each class, there was one commonality—an emphasis on student engagement. Today, I try to pay forward the appreciation that I feel for my teachers, for making learning engaging, by mentoring new teachers on how best to engage their students through similar learner-centered practices. Educators are so much more than content specialists; they help shape the whole person. Educators facilitate the growth of student self-awareness, they flame the sparks of curiosity, and they can make connections between learning theory and real-world application.

Involving students in class is not just a feel-good practice; student engagement results in better student attention with attention leading to higher rates of student achievement. Here are eight considerations to keep in mind to not only make student engagement possible in a distracted and complex world but that also will, hopefully, bring you joy as an educator when you see your students light up like a sports stadium.

Plan Lessons Around The Learning Objective And Not The Engagement Strategy


Teacher boosts student engagement in her classroom

As a teaching coach, I often see well-meaning teachers planning a lesson around a fun student activity. I love that these teachers are keeping student interest front and center, but we can’t forget that time with our students is limited, and we need to ensure that students are meeting certain content and skill-based standards. Instead, step one should be to develop your lesson objective and then consider how you will assess student learning outcomes in this lesson. After this, choose a student activity/task that will help students practice the learning outcome. Many students are driven by personal success; they will appreciate completing tasks and engaging in activities that they know will help them reach a defined goal.

Tip: Connect that learning goal to real-world relevance through articles, podcasts, videos, etc. Let students know how/where they might use this learning. How does this learning help explain the world around us?

Plan Activities That Are Cognitively Rigorous


Teacher increases student engagement in her classroom

How does the saying go? Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. So are idle minds. Bored students are the kiss of death when it comes to classroom management. If we do not engage students productively and consistently throughout a lesson, they will find ways through which to amuse themselves even if inappropriate.

Write learning objectives where students are consistently asked to stretch and expand their thinking. Then, plan activities, aligned to the learning objective, that will require students to assess, evaluate, synthesize, and create information. Plan activities that move beyond students recalling and reproducing information and place emphasis on student strategic thinking. One lesson planning tool that I always recommend teachers have by their side is the Hess Cognitive Rigor Matrix for writing/speaking and/or math/science as it combines both the cognitive rigor models of Bloom’s Taxonomy and Webb’s Depth of Knowledge (DOK) construct.

Vary The Learning Modalities In Your Teaching Practice


Engaged students in a classroom

How many of you remember the 1980s movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? In that movie, Ferris’ teacher drones on and on while students sleep, doodle, blow bubble gum bubbles, and even drool. Funny, yes. However, it’s sad to say but some teachers in 2022 still turn their students into hostages during never-ending lectures. Even I, as a teaching coach, sometimes get bored when observing teachers talk incessantly but at least I have the option of leaving and visiting another teacher’s class. Students do not have this option.

Alternate how you teach. Whole class instruction has its merits/role—particularly when introducing a topic and conducting a BRIEF mini-lecture on that topic—but release students to practice learning both independently AND in small peer groups, during each lesson, before regrouping as a whole class during the lesson summary.

Student Activities And Assessment Can Be One In The Same


Teacher increases student engagement in her class

Assessment is not just formal paper and pencil tests. While tests are an important indicator of how much students have learned AFTER instruction, teachers can use cold calling, polling (i.e., Kahoot games), and choral response DURING learning to determine if students are learning material or if they must pivot their instruction for better student understanding. These informal assessment strategies can both be fun and produce assessment data.

Also, we educators can do a better job in assessing our students through more authentic assessments such as project-based learning, case studies, and scenarios as well as through student portfolio assessment. So many careers these days require collaboration. So, why then are we still often assessing in isolation?

Involve Students In Self- And Peer Assessment


Engaged students work on an assignment

Above, I mention portfolio assessment as both a great student engagement and assessment strategy. There also are additional less-involved ways through which to engage students in analyzing their academic growth and achievement daily. For example, students can self- and then peer assess essays using a performance rubric. Students can critique their and peer contributions to group work. Students can also shout out positive peer contributions during lesson summary activities. These strategies not only engage students but foster social-emotional competency as well.

Engage Students Through Personalization


Teacher engages her students during a lesson

I was lucky to be able to enroll in Ms. Firestone’s ELA/visual and performing arts “house” in a high school that was otherwise dominated by achievement in sports. However, while it is wonderful when districts do provide students with opportunities to learn through cross-disciplinary and theme-based learning approaches, all teachers can engage students through personalization of the learning experience.

Conduct a survey/inventory of student interests. How do you build these interests into your lesson plans? Consider the cultural backgrounds of your students. How might you bring in learning materials and/or teach content through situations with which your students already may have community knowledge? Also, students who are below academic proficiency may become frustrated and disengage while students who are above proficiency may also check out if not provided with an appropriate level of challenge. How do you use common diagnostic assessment at the beginning, middle, and end of the year to determine how many instructional groups you have in your class? What scaffolds and/or extensions might you provide your students so that they do not become frustrated or bored?

Know Which Engagement Strategy To Use When


Engaged students play with blocks during class

If a typical lesson is 45 to 50 minutes, and we are following a gradual release model, this means that we have approximately five minutes for an introductory activity, 10 minutes for a mini-lecture (I and we do), 20 to 25 minutes for student practice (you do), and five to 10 minutes for summation of the lesson. Therefore, our engagement activities need to be concise during a lesson’s introduction, the mini-lecture, and the summation of a lesson and can be extended/deeper process when students are practicing their learning. In other words, don’t try to do an inside-outside circle activity during the mini-lecture when a quick turn and talk is more appropriate. Save the inside-outside circle activity for student practice time.

Also, have a ready bank of four to five student discussion strategies that you can swap in and out during student practice time each lesson. However, a word of caution. Don’t push back against collaborative learning if you fear the loss of classroom control. It is not the discussion strategy that is faulty but how well the teacher implements it and sets classroom expectations. Students may still need the teacher to instruct them on how to engage in a discussion as well as both discussion stems and guiding questions.

Let Students Own The Learning


Teacher increases student engagement in his classroom

Provide students with SOME choice when it comes to how they will learn content/skills and how they will demonstrate mastery. Allow students who like to move/dance an opportunity to demonstrate their learning through a role play. Perhaps students who like to draw might demonstrate learning through the creation of a poster. Still, others may want to write and/or produce a podcast. Our students are digital natives. Don’t fight technology; embrace it. Regardless, make sure students are being evaluated similarly/on meeting the learning objective and not on other extraneous skills used to produce their product.

If you would like additional ideas on how to impact student lives without sacrificing your own, and have a life teaching, check out my quick hack teaching courses, including on student engagement, here. You can also reach me on LinkedIn.

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8 Surefire Ways To Do Student Engagement …

Training For Non-Trainers: How To Train People In 5 Steps



I spent 15 years teaching English as a foreign language. I leveraged my teaching skills to get my first job in the contact center industry as a training and quality manager.

Our leaders were very talented but had no idea how to train people.

Subject matter experts in IT companies had the same problem. They were the experts but had no idea how to teach.

Leaders train and develop their teams. The team delivers better results. Parents teach and bring up their children. Hopefully, they lead more fulfilling lives.

Teaching is a key leadership skill. It can be taught.

Teaching ranges from a five-minute session on how to do something to delivering a doctoral-level course.

The shortest lesson and the longest course have certain things in common.

Aims


Woman talks to a coworker in the office

Any unit of instruction needs a clear and precise aim.

Aims are best defined using “can-do” statements. They say: “By the end of this lesson/course, a participant can...”

You will have to ask yourself “What does 'can do X' mean?”

Your aim may be more complex than you thought. Instead of one lesson, you may need a course with multiple lessons and multiple aims.

Assumed/Required Knowledge


Woman attends a virtual work training

There’s nothing worse than teaching people what they know already. However, your training session will collapse if your trainees do not know the minimum required to understand your content.

Define what they need to know before they start. Ask yourself if your trainees have this knowledge.

Look at your aims and ask yourself what they need to know. If you are teaching someone to create and use formulae in spreadsheets, your trainees will need to know basic arithmetic.

If you are training people to play their part in a process, they will need to know something about the whole process. They will understand the importance of what they are doing and why they have to do it in a certain way. Without this, they have no reason to try and do it properly.

Structure


Man runs a training session at work

​A good training session needs “inputs” and “outputs.” A typical “death by PowerPoint” session is all inputs and no outputs. At most, trainees will remember five percent of it.

As a bare minimum, a training session should include the following:

  • A "Lead In”: The simplest is to tell participants what the session is about. You can also ask them what they already know about the topic, and what they want to learn. This way, you find out their expectations.
  • Input: An input session should be no longer than 20 minutes. That is the average human concentration span. For teenagers, even that can be a stretch. Active learning is better than passive learning. Consider using exercises where participants match rules to examples. When going through the answers, you explain the key concepts.
  • Output: This is the part most “trainers” forget! “Output" is an exercise or a test to see how much trainees have understood. Output activities may involve simulation exercises, role plays, or practical exercises. Trainees get the chance to “play” with their newfound knowledge in a realistic scenario. “Playing” is often very important to help trainees understand how to use what they have learned.

Delivery/Interaction With Trainees


Coworkers talk during a work training session

Successful training is never one way. You adapt to the trainees. You need to watch how your trainees react to the content.

My philosophy is if my trainees don’t understand anything, it’s not their fault; it’s my fault. If they don’t understand, I haven’t done my job properly. This is an important mindset.

Frequent changes of activity are recommended to keep your trainees’ attention. Pair and group activities are also recommended. Trainees engage more actively with the content if they are working with another person than they do in a question-and-answer session with the trainer.

Trainees need frequent opportunities to ask questions. Trainees may not want to ask questions in front of the class, so you can stimulate questions by asking a few of your own. This is where concept-checking questions come in handy. They can often be “What happens if…?” or “Why do we …?" questions.

Evaluating Learning


Employees play a game at work after a training session

Without evaluation, we do not know how successful our training is.

Many training courses limit their evaluation to a feedback form where trainees express their satisfaction. That does not tell us how well they understand and can use their newfound knowledge.

Where a training session contains an output activity, the simplest form of assessment is to see how well they complete the activity.

Other evaluations can include tests and quizzes. These can be gamified to make them entertaining rather than intimidating.

Looking beyond the end of the course, you can also ask trainees’ managers how much trainees have improved their performance based on the training they have received.

Next Steps


Man on laptop plans his next training session

When you deliver your next training session or “knowledge transfer,” think about:

  • What must your trainees be able to do?
  • What do they need to know before they start? How do you know they have this knowledge?
  • How are you going to deliver your content?
  • How will you check your trainees’ understanding?

Once you’ve thought about these questions and delivered your training, get in touch with me and tell me how it went!

Further reading...

For more knowledge transfer techniques read:

Test-Teach-Test: A Quick And Effective Way To Plan Training

How To Conduct IT Training The Army Way

Acquiring Job Advance Your Career Career Changing Careers and Employment Education Internship

Training For Non-Trainers: How To Train People …

8 Education Industry Leaders Speak Out: How To Address Teacher Shortages



Within the United States, many state departments of education are lowering teacher certification requirements to meet the demands of the current teacher shortage. In New Jersey, for example, aspiring educators no longer need to take PRAXIS exams. In Arizona, people are now allowed to teach in school with just a high school diploma (and current enrollment in university). In New Mexico, the National Guard has been activated as substitute teachers.

As a teacher coach, I support the development of many types of educators—those trained in traditional university school programs and those who participated in alternative route pathways. I, myself, was an alternate route teaching candidate who took certification courses on nights/weekends in New Jersey. While I am now able to pay it forward by mentoring new educators, it did take several years of me teaching students to gain my “sea legs” in the trade. As a result, I do sometimes wonder if I was able to fully support those first few cohorts of students whom I taught. I also know, however, that even going through formal university teaching programs is no guarantor of success in teaching as all new teachers must adapt to the local school community and cultural conditions where they work.

The recruitment and retention of quality teachers is, therefore, a topic of much importance. Because I assume that others in education also see this situation as a five-alarm fire, I decided to ask education industry leaders, including those in other industrialized nations, if they agree or disagree with the easing of teacher certification requirements, and how we might best retain the teachers we already have. Here are their thoughts:

American Association Of Colleges For Teacher Education (AACTE)


Teacher smiles at her student

Dr. Jacqueline Rodriguez

Vice President for Research, Policy & Advocacy

According to a 2019 report from the Economic Policy Institute, “The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought.” There have been consistent needs in areas like ESL, special education, and STEM for many years. Post-pandemic, the teaching profession has experienced a massive upheaval. We are now seeing shortages of fully licensed and credentialed educators across all disciplines and all communities.

In response to the shortage of profession-ready educators, states are lowering standards for entry into the profession and schools are hiring people with emergency or provisional licenses who are not fully prepared to enter the classroom and meet the academic or social/emotional needs of our K-12 students. These practices are antithetical to the profession that builds all other professions, the national economy, and the security of the nation.

Bottom line: Every parent wants their child in a classroom led by someone who knows how to teach and how children learn. Lowering certification requirements endangers children’s learning and their future life outcomes. It also creates increased churn in the educator workforce, causing districts to spend more money to fill shortages in the future. We are already witnessing the never-ending cycle of replacing unprepared people with more unprepared people.

Recruiting and retaining high-quality educators for the teaching profession has become more difficult as the teaching talent pool is attracted to other occupations with higher salaries, better working conditions, and more respect. By addressing compensation and treating teachers with respect for the important work they do, we can better retain current educators in the field.

Retention begins with preparation. Grow Your Own and residency programs are evidence-based, sustainable models that increase the supply of profession-ready educators. These models have the added benefit of attracting a diverse staff who already work at the schools and live in the communities they will serve when they graduate. By scaling evidence-based preparation programs, we can ensure fully licensed teachers enter the classroom ready for a career in education.

At AACTE, our members are eager to fully prepare people who have already entered the field on emergency or provisional licenses. We encourage districts to partner with their local college or university in supporting new, unprepared teachers to become profession-ready by enrolling in educator preparation programs.

Australian Institute For Teaching And School Leadership (AITSL)


Teacher lectures his students

Mark Grant

Chief Executive Officer

AITSL collects and collates data that gives a clear picture of supply issues across the nation, and that picture is stark.

Data from our Australian Teacher Workforce Data initiative shows approximately 16% of our teaching workforce are approaching retirement age and we don’t have enough people entering the initial teacher education pipeline to meet current and future shortfalls. Additionally, data published by AITSL in late 2021, drawing on the largest ever survey sample of Australian teachers, shows that 25% of the teacher workforce indicate they are likely to leave the profession before they retire, with approximately half of them (13% of the workforce overall) intending to leave in the next 10 years.

The current issues affecting the teacher workforce require flexible approaches—without trading off standards—to match the supply and demand of teachers, speed up entry into the classroom, and improve the quality of pre-service teachers’ practical experience within initial teacher education.

However, the increase in teacher supply to meet current and future demand must not compromise quality teaching, including the need to meet nationally agreed standards to graduate from a teacher education course and to register as a teacher in Australia. This will be very difficult for our education employers, but we know how critical it is, given teacher expertise is the greatest influence in schools on outcomes for Australia’s 4 million students.

The key to attracting and retaining teachers is professional status. A national strategy to raise the status of the teaching profession could include a series of comprehensive, evidence-based actions to further professionalise the teacher workforce, leading to improvements in self-efficacy, confidence, and work satisfaction.

Australia needs to take comprehensive action now to attract and prepare high-quality teacher candidates, deploy them where they are needed, ensure they are appropriately inducted into the profession, provide opportunities for their ongoing development and recognition of teaching expertise, and, ultimately, retain them in the profession long term.

To read more about the work AITSL does and read our latest research reports, visit our website.

How To Navigate Life, LLC


Stressed art teacher

Timothy Klein

Partner and Book Author

First off, making it easier for people to become educators is unequivocally a good thing. We need more teachers, especially those from underserved and marginalized populations.

However, reducing the training and requirements needed to become a teacher isn't addressing the root cause of teacher shortage: teacher retention, not recruitment, is driving this crisis. Ninety percent of teaching positions that need to be filled are the result of beginning and mid-career teachers leaving the profession.

To address the root cause, we need to focus our energy on retaining the teachers we have.

That starts by valuing teaching as an essential vocation. The United States rose to prominence by fostering and developing a diverse array of talented people. High-quality universal education was the engine of our achievement.

Less than one in three educators think that their work is valued by our society.

Now a wide array of actors is trying to undermine teachers further by controlling what they teach and how. This only happens in education: people don't feel entitled to tell doctors, lawyers, or firefighters how to do their jobs because we realize they are trained professionals.

Why aren't teachers afforded the same respect? Somehow, we have forgotten how essential and important a highly educated citizenry is. If we truly want to solve the teacher shortage, we must start respecting them first.

Learning Policy Institute


Teacher helps a student with an assignment

Patrick Shields

Executive Director

The simple answer is no. Lowering certification requirements simply kicks the can down the road while negatively impacting students and schools. Uncertified teachers and teachers who enter the profession through alternative routes leave at much higher rates than their fully prepared peers. Students learning from underprepared teachers also score significantly lower in both mathematics and English Language Arts. Additionally, the increase in staff turnover that results from hiring underprepared teachers has consequences beyond individual classrooms, as the entire school suffers from staff churn and the influx of new, less effective teachers.

A better solution is to lower the financial barriers to enter the profession through scholarships and loan forgiveness programs. Creating incentives to enter the profession is especially critical as the teacher pipeline continues to shrink. If financial barriers are removed, candidates can afford to prepare for teaching through a year’s worth of coursework integrated with extensive clinical practice. One promising approach is teacher residencies. Building on the medical residency model, teacher residencies provide a pathway to teacher certification grounded in deep clinical training. Residents apprentice alongside an expert teacher in an underserved classroom for a full academic year. Research shows that residency models increase the diversity of the teaching profession, improve teacher retention, and positively impact student learning.

Strengthening teacher preparation through high-quality pathways like residencies addresses shortages in relatively short order and promises benefits for students and staff alike. Although there are clearly some upfront costs to investing in a full year of high-quality preparation, districts have found innovative approaches to sustaining residencies while reaping the benefits in terms of stable school staffs and lower costs of constantly hiring underprepared teachers. Rather than rush into a band-aid solution by lowering teacher certification requirements, policymakers can turn to evidence-based, long-lasting solutions.

National Center For Grow Your Own (NCGYO)


Teacher teaches a lesson in the classroom

David Donaldson

Managing Partner

States are doing their best to respond to the teacher shortage crisis that has been a long time coming. I will always agree that the best recruitment strategy is having a better retention strategy. However, to get more people into the profession, one option for states to consider is investing in Grow Your Own programs and registered apprenticeships in teaching that allow aspiring educators to become a teacher for free and get paid to do so.

National Council On Teacher Quality (NCTQ)


Math teacher lectures his students

Heather Peske

President

Our nation’s teachers have navigated the challenges of the last few years with innovation, grace, and commitment. Many teachers have been left feeling depleted, as is reflected in recent surveys and news stories. So, in response, are teachers leaving classrooms in droves? No, the nation is not facing an overall, widespread teacher shortage, according to the available data.

There is a shortage of teachers for certain schools, such as those with high percentages of students living in poverty, and in certain hard-to-staff subjects, such as special education and STEM—and this has been the case for a number of years, well before the pandemic. We also know from decades of research that it is our most vulnerable students—students living in poverty, students of color, English language learners, and students with disabilities—who are assigned at higher rates to less qualified, less experienced, and less effective teachers.

The last thing we should be considering, then, is lowering requirements for teachers to earn a license. Students need teachers who are skilled and knowledgeable, especially now in the wake of the pandemic. Policy solutions that make it easier to become a teacher are overly broad, short-term solutions that amount to saying we just need “warm bodies” in classrooms. It’s harmful to students and to the teaching profession.

To be successful, teachers must know the subject matter as well as the science of learning and how to support their individual students. Rather than lowering expectations to become a teacher, we need targeted policy solutions that will help prepare, recruit, and retain teachers. This means working with teacher preparation programs to make sure aspiring teachers get the knowledge, skills, and practice they need to succeed, investing in student teaching and apprenticeship programs that connect aspiring teachers to the schools and positions with the highest demand, and targeting compensation to attract and retain teachers to reach the students and schools that need them the most.

The New Teacher Project (TNTP)


Teacher educates his students on new technology

Dr. Tequilla Brownie

Chief Executive Officer

There are many reasons that school systems are currently struggling to hire teachers, most of which pre-date the COVID-19 pandemic. Pay is too low; job requirements are nearly impossible; pipelines are weak. In response, many states are reforming teacher certification requirements. While this alone will not solve teacher shortages, changing certification to be based on actual teaching ability can contribute to a stronger, more diverse teacher workforce.

This idea guides our own teacher training programs. Our approach to teacher preparation is grounded in three goals:

  • Breaking down barriers to access to diverse communities.
  • Incorporating high-quality development experiences and a high bar for teacher performance.
  • Providing differentiated support that is informed by continuous progress monitoring and improvement.

Unfortunately, teacher certification requirements can work against those goals. Most states require prospective teachers to pass one or more standardized tests, usually from the Praxis series, to earn even a provisional license. These tests are costly to take and administer, are weak predictors of teaching ability, and they screen out a disproportionate number of teachers of color, undermining goals around teacher quality and diversity. Given that we need an additional one million teachers of color, these tests are a significant barrier.

We see this every year in our programs. Teachers with a proven ability to lead their kids to big academic gains (as reflected in test scores, classroom observations, and other measures) face the prospect of losing their jobs because of their Praxis scores. We also see plenty of teachers who pass the tests but struggle in the classroom.

There is a better approach. Instead of relying on standardized tests, states can refocus licensure rules on actual teaching ability. These measures don’t have to include or be limited to standardized test scores: classroom observations, assessments of student work, and student surveys can provide valuable information as well. In short, let’s stop relying on proxies and base certification on what really matters for our students.

To be clear, this change alone isn’t enough. If we don’t also improve the value proposition for becoming a teacher, we can’t sustainably fix the problem. But this common-sense change can start to move us in the right direction.

Teacher Development Trust (United Kingdom)


Teacher with students outside on grass

David Weston

Chief Executive Officer

Here in the United Kingdom, we’ve also been struggling to get enough teachers. In fact, this current year looks like one of the toughest on record when it comes to recruiting teachers onto initial teacher education programmes.

Like many other countries, we’ve been worried for some years about retention, although I don’t think I’ve yet seen robust evidence that retention has become a significantly larger problem here since the pandemic. Nonetheless, government in England (because Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own independent education systems, much like separate states in the USA) has been pursuing a few key policies.

Firstly, government has been raising starting pay for teachers. Even though England’s average teacher pay was good by international comparison, our starting salaries were relatively low. Secondly, we’ve added much more funded and structured support for new teachers. Where previously we had one year of support after graduation, now there are two years of support with schools funded to reduce teaching loads and also funded to provide a trained mentor and a more structured induction programme. Thirdly, government is current going through a major re-accreditation of initial teacher training providers, asking all of them to show how they will meet tougher standards in order to continue. All three policies are facing challenges, particularly with high inflation, economic challenges, and employment market challenges, but the approach here has been to try and maintain or even raise the bar and use support, pay and national advertising campaigns to attract more teachers.

My own organisation, the Teacher Development Trust, a non-profit, focuses on how we create the conditions and leadership to ensure that teachers stay and improve. We train leaders in approaches to improve organizational strategy, professional development, and leadership, based on our research on leadership and culture, with government-funded programmes to train new leaders. This seems particularly vital right now—if we’re going to struggle to get new teachers then we’ve really got to, to coin a phrase from Professor Dylan Wiliam, ‘love the ones we’re with.'

Takeaways On Teacher Shortfalls And Easing Of Certification Requirements


Teacher with her happy students

While opinions differ on whether we should be lowering teacher certification requirements, or even if we were ever looking at the right things when recruiting teachers (i.e., focusing too much on new teacher GPAs/test scores), many industry leaders call for ongoing and differentiated teacher professional development and training regardless of how teachers come into the profession. Grow Your Own models, teacher residencies, and apprenticeships in teaching are professional development strategies that are becoming increasingly popular ways through which to address ongoing teacher training needs.

Many of the voices in this article also call out the importance of valuing our teachers as professionals, be that in the United States and/or globally. If we aim to retain teachers and stop the never-ending cycle of hiring, quitting/firing, and rehiring teachers, particularly in traditionally marginalized communities, we need to consider how best to raise teacher pay, make the job of teaching sustainable, and offer ongoing teacher recognition. As David Rosenberg, partner at Education Resource Strategies, adds, "we need to build into daily schedules the time for teacher collaboration and reduce the isolation that many educators feel." Providing professional development that is embedded, ongoing, and targeted to student needs can be a great first step in ensuring that our teachers feel appreciated.

If you would like additional ideas on how to impact student lives without sacrificing your own, and have a life teaching, check out my quick hack teaching courses here. You can also reach me on LinkedIn.

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8 Education Industry Leaders Speak Out: How …

Understanding — The Trainer’s “Holy Grail”



How do you know if you understand something?

I am a non-technical person working in an IT company. My colleagues will often tell me something technical. Sometimes I understand what they are saying. Sometimes I have no idea what they are talking about. Sometimes I think I understand what they are telling me when they are telling me, but then later I realize that I don’t understand it at all.

Understanding is complex. As communicators and trainers, we need to think about how understanding works to communicate and train effectively.

We are all communicators and trainers at one time or another.

What Is Understanding?


Employees take notes during a work training

A quick Google search of “understanding” does not provide a clear answer.

Researchgate, quoting “Newton, 2000,” says, “Understanding implies being able to think, act and apply the knowledge in different ways in various situations.”

Robert Ryshke, writing in “gse.harvard.edu,” states, “Understanding a topic of study is a matter of being able to perform in a variety of thought-demanding ways with the topic.”

Artseducator.org says something very similar: “Understanding is a matter of being able to do a variety of thought-provoking things with a topic.”

Let’s Ask Again: How Do You Know If You Understand Something?


Decoding/understanding concept

If someone explains something to you and then asks you if you understand it, you will probably reply based on how you feel.

As a trainer, you may well look at your trainees’ faces to see if they understand the material. When they don’t understand, they may look uncertain or give you the “What are you talking about?” look. (My two-year-old niece is very good at that!)

The feeling that you understand is sometimes deceptive. This is why educators use “output activities” or tests to see if trainees really understand.

How Can We Test Understanding?


understand your customer concept

The worst thing you can do is ask: “Do you understand?” It puts the burden of understanding on the trainee. If he doesn’t understand, it’s the trainer’s fault. She needs to explain the content in a different way.

When learning in groups, trainees may not say they do not understand for fear of looking stupid in front of their colleagues.

There are a number of options you can build into your training plan. These options are based on Wiggins and McTighe’s “6 Facets of Understanding”:

  1. Ability to explain the content: This has to be more than just repeating the material verbatim. Let’s imagine you are teaching sales agents a new sales script. If your trainees create a mind map to explain the material they received in a PowerPoint presentation, they are reformatting the information and engaging with it at a deeper level than they would by repeating it.
  2. Interpreting the content: To see how well your agents might understand the sales script, ask them to explain it to their colleagues as if the other person was five years old, their grandmother, or to an alien from another planet. Their challenge is to explain it to someone who does not have the same contextual knowledge that they do.
  3. Applying the content: When teaching your sales team the new script, this will include getting them to role play it. One trainee will be the salesperson and the other the customer. Role plays can include “what would you do if…?” scenarios to practice dealing with different types of customers and handling different objections.
  4. Having a perspective based on the content: You can build this into the role plays by asking the “customer” to play a specific kind of customer and behave as this kind of person might behave. In a business-to-consumer scenario, this might involve playing roles representing different demographics. In a business-to-business context, this might mean playing the roles of customers in different verticals who have different requirements and different ways of behaving. Builders have different needs and behave in different ways from bankers.
  5. Empathize: When adopting roles in the role-play training, ask trainees to imagine how customers might feel and put those emotions into the training. This could include angry and aggressive customers. This gives trainees playing the salesperson’s role the chance to test their skills in handling an angry customer, while it gives the trainee playing the “angry customer” the chance to imagine how the angry customer is feeling, and adjust how she handles him accordingly.
  6. Have self-knowledge: Some trainees may find this uncomfortable since trainees need to examine their own reactions and feelings towards the content. For salespeople, particularly after they have role-played a demanding conversation, this may help them to understand and manage their own emotional responses when facing, for example, angry customers.

The Ball’s In Your Court!


Woman trains her colleagues at work

Are you planning some training? How do you know that you understand the content well enough to train it? What questions are you afraid people will ask? How do you plan to test your trainees’ understanding?

I’d love to hear more about it! Drop me a line!

Further reading...

The following article may be both relevant and useful: Explaining How Things Work: How To Do It And Why It Matters

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Understanding — The Trainer’s “Holy Grail”