Tips for New Teachers #EdChat #BackToSchool

The start of the new school year is upon us and it has me thinking about the past 15 years of teaching. I was thinking about all of the things I need to get ready for at the start of school and then I started to think about how many of those have nothing to do with curriculum. These were things I learned from colleagues or on my own over the years. I thought I would share some of these nuggets of information with Internet in the hopes that it will make the start of the school year a bit easier.

These are not in any order of importance, just the order they came to my brain.

1. Get to know the support staff as soon as you can. The secretaries, custodial team, special education support staff, ESL support staff, the cafeteria team, and any others in the building working to support students outside of the traditional classroom environment. You will need to rely on these great people at different times during the year and it is so important to know them by name and have a strong working relationship with them.

2. Find out where the closest bathroom is for staff and students. This might seems a bit silly, but when you only have a very limited window to use the bathroom, you need to judge how much time it will take for you to get there and back before the next class starts. For students, this allows you to know about how long it will take for them to get to the bathroom and back in a reasonable amount of time. Sometimes students will want to stretch their legs and take the long way around. If they do this often, have a private conversation about this and see if there are other issues going on there.

3. Never ever discipline a student in front of other students. This is hard because it requires checking emotions at times, but it is so important to make sure these exchanges are in private. I'm still guilty of this once in a while, but I have gotten better over the years. If you need to address an issue with a student, just calmly ask them to see you after class. This prevents a blow up and the student acting out to save face in front of peers.

4. Do not spend the first day of class going over all of the rules. Most of these rules are the same as every class, so they will already have a sense of how class is supposed to work. Instead, spend the first day getting to know your students and letting them get to know a little about you. Play some icebreaker games and just have a relaxed environment. Save the syllabus for day two.

5. Greet the students at the door. No matter what you have going on, get to the door and say hi to each student. This should happen almost every day, but there is always something that will get in the way. Greet them on the way in and try to be at the door when it is time to go. These little acts will go a long way with students, especially those that feel like they do not matter in school.

6. Make time for lunch with your staff. This is one of the biggest things I missed my first year. I felt like I had to work, work, work, to stay afloat my first year, I missed building relationships with my peers. Hanging around adults after teaching teens or children half the day is a great breath of fresh air. It is also a wonderful time to pick their brain and ask for any tips or tricks they might have. If you do not connect at lunch, you will find that there is little time do so the rest of the day.

7. Become best friends with your school librarian. They are one of the most important humans in the building. They are usually in charge of the computer labs, the Makerspace, and other odds and ends. They can help you set up assignments and provide support for projects. The librarian needs to be a person you can quickly email if you are in a research jam with your students. Bring them coffee, bagels, donuts, and the like to make sure they are always happy and ready to help.

8. Let the students choose their seats. This is one that will get some push back from people and I they have great points, but I love letting the kids sit where they want. The rule I have is that they choose first and, if needed, I will choose second. There will always be a couple of kids that need to be relocated after a few weeks, but the class is much nicer when they can sit by friends. It might be tough to get to know all of their names because they are not sitting by last name, but it is worth it in the long run.

9. It's ok to take your kids outside of the classroom. I was always so afraid to leave my room and go to the hallway or outside for a class period. Nobody every said I could not, but nobody ever said I could. Once I build up the confidence, I took my kids around the building to explore and see different things. Sometimes, I just wanted a change of scenery. Leave a note on the door and head out with the class. The students will love the change of pace.

10. Make sure you check all websites you want to use at school before using them with students. There is nothing worse than getting to school and finding out a website is blocked. Test them at school and find out the process to get something unblocked as soon as you can. Sometimes the block is an accident and other times it is because nobody has ever used that site and it is labeled something funny that gets it blocked. I've learned this the hard way, so please test at school.

11. Find out who the All-Star Sub is in the building. Every building or district has a few subs that everyone knows is the best. They can be trusted to do everything on your sub plans. Ask a few people and they will give you the name(s). Keep there info saved in your phone so you can reach out if you need a sub last minute or months in advance. Having a good sub can save you stress while you are out.

12. Find out where you get your supplies for the classroom. Supplies might be limited, but they are there. Sometimes we just buy what we see when we are out, but school has them in a closet somewhere. Also, save receipts for stuff that you buy because you might be able to get paid back!

13. Use your mentor. Most schools will assign a new teacher to a mentor and you need to go to them when you are stuck or have questions. Over the school year, you will find that you will gravitate to another teacher other than your mentor as you learn the personalities of the rest of the staff. This is ok and I think it is good to have a mentor outside of your department as well. They can give a different perspective on how things are in the school.

14. Learn to say no. You will be asked to chaperone every dance, attend every sporting event, be the advisor for many clubs, and you have to know when to say no. It is ok to do extra things and be part of the school. That is important and you should do them as long as it does not take away from needed rest and relaxation that allows you to focus on your craft. I coached and advised during my early years and it was a great way to connect to students outside of the classroom, but there has to be a limit. Saying no does not make you a bad teacher, it can make you a stronger one.

15. Lastly, embrace who you are an translate that into your classroom. Odds are, you were hired because of who you are and what you know. Students will care about who you are in the classroom and can spot a phony a mile away. Be genuine with your students and they will be genuine with you. It took me years to embrace my inner nerd. Once I did, my classes became even better.

These were a bunch of tips that may or may not apply to you. Feel free to share with friends or add any tips you might have in the comment section.

Have a great school year and reach out if you need anything!

Student Selected Learning Objectives with @PollEverywhereand @PostItProducts

I've been thinking about my learning objectives lately. I'm going for the Highly Effective rating this year for my evaluation. I've been doing very well in many of the categories, but there are some that I still needed to enhance. One of those areas is the role of students in my classroom. I'm a big advocate for student choice (20 Time), but I needed to think of other places I could let students have a voice. Learning objectives seemed like a good place.

Traditionally, I decide the focus of each lesson and unit and how the students are going to approach a certain piece of literature. I post that at the start of class on Evernote and share it with students at the start of class. I feel this is a pretty standard approach to setting up a lesson for many teachers. Having students select the learning objective turned out to be much easier than I thought it would be.

We were starting our Emily Dickinson unit and I wanted my students to do some research on her life. I gave the students 8 parts of her life to explore (Childhood, Education, Religion, Health, Relationships (Family and Social), Adult Life, Writing Career, and Death). Students split these ares up with others at the table and spent the class period doing research. They were to come to class the next day and share their findings. 


On the next day, students were instructed to discuss their findings and decide on what they thought were the 5 most influential events in Emily Dickinson's life. They were to place these 5 events on Post-It Notes provided on their desks. 

The students discussed their research and started to write out their thoughts on the top 5 events. Once they were done, they had to place them on the dry-erase board. I set up the board with 5 slots that matched the color of the Post-it® Notes they were given. It was so nice to be able to color code the information using the notes. Also, I got the extra sticky notes, so the notes could be moved around from desk to wall and all over the wall when we organized.

Once all of the ideas are placed on the board, the class looked at them and discussed them all. I moved them around and grouped them based on shared concepts. Next time, I will have students do this part of the process. It was easier for me, but I think it is better if let them do it. Each class had their own ideas and they explained them in different ways. It made for a more interesting class each time for me instead of leading the same discussion multiple times. This really let the students take the lead and that was the whole point of the exercise.


After the organization of ideas, we went to the voting phase of the learning objective. I numbered each concept the students had grouped the ideas into and created a PollEverywhere so students could vote anonymously from their mobile devices. It was a very quick poll and it only took a few minutes at most. The kids loved having the chance to use their mobile device and have a say in how they were going to learn for this unit.


Each class had different ideas and a different discussion. When the dust settled, different classes chose different learning objectives. While some might view that as more work for me to prepare different class discussions for group of students, it really will not be more work. The students are invested in the class discussion because they have ownership of their learning objective. They will be the ones that are going to lead class discussion because they know exactly how they are going to approach the topic because they chose it. I really see this as a great way to get more students involved in class ownership and look forward to trying out in other units.


Other Use Cases:

Using Poll Everywhere and Post-it® Notes does not have to be confined to the ELA classroom. Their are applications for these great tools in all classes.

Science Classroom: One of the best parts of Science can be guessing. That is what experimenting is all about. Having students look a a problem in class, write down how they think the problem can be solved using Post-it® Notes, and then use Poll Everywhere to choose the best guess is a great way to get students thinking about Science.

Once the students do the experiment, they can get back together and write their ideas down on Post-it® Notes and see if they all understood what just happened. The process can be repeated multiple times for any number of experiments:

Math Classroom: Post-it® Notes are perfect for quick problem solving and sharing. A teacher can place a problem on the board and have students do the work on the Post-it® Notes and run and place them on the board. Students can then review the work and see if the answer matches up.

Students could also use Post-it® Notes and Poll Everywhere as a way to let the teacher know what they want to focus on for the day in class. By writing down the problems they had trouble with or the concepts that they are are still struggling to understand, Poll Everywhere could be used by the class to focus on one area without students feeling embarrassed about not knowing something.

Tools Used:

Poll Everywhere was a great addition to my classroom. I have used it in sessions at conferences, but I have not really used it in the classroom. It was so easy to set up and I the students loved the quick feedback in class. If you do not have an account, sign up and use it with your students when you need to collect some information. They are also really awesome on Twitter, so give them a shout out if you have any questions about using Poll Everywhere in the classroom.

Post-it® Notes have always been a big part of my life. I use them for so many different things, there really isn't time to go over them all. Post-It Notes allowed me to quickly get the information from my students and have them share it with the rest of their table and then place it on the board for easy grouping. The extra sticky notes were perfect and stayed securely to the whiteboard in the back of my room. I think teachers all over use Post-It Notes and there are tons of fun and creative ways to use them in the classroom.

“I am a compensated 3M-sponsored blogger. Opinions are my own and additional products used in the project were selected by me. ” 

An Apology To My First Hour #EdChat

This is really a letter of apology to all of the classes that get the first run through of a lesson. Today is just another example of how teachers change on the fly to make lessons better as the day go, but I feel bad for my first hour. 

Today, I had my students use TodaysMeet as their exit ticket. They needed to re-write a good topic sentence based on an old topic from earlier in the year. My thinking, which was terrible, was that I would give them a thesis I wrote based on a question they encountered earlier in the year. Even explaining it is complicated. Students seemed confused and had a hard time coming up with a new topic sentence because they did not write the thesis. Ugh. It was a mess, but my students did the best and completed the task. 

As the disaster was unfolding, I realized that I would have my 6th hour just rewrite one of their claims from the essay in front of them. It was so simple, I should have just gone with that in the first place. I managed to talk myself out of it and I'm not sure why. 

The good part is that I'm reflecting as I teach and making changes as they are needed. However, what about my first hour? Are they forever doomed to get the "not as good" lesson? I really wish I had a rotating schedule here so the I would see different classes at different hours so the first hour would always change. 

Anyone have any thoughts on dealing with the first lesson of the day mess-ups?

Use @Evernote for all of your lesson planning needs #EdChat

Since I started to use Evernote in every aspect of my classroom, I wasn't really sure what I was going to discover. I was sure there would be some way that Evernote was not going to meet my needs and I would be forced to add another tool to my chest while I continue the experiment for the school year. One way I was weary of was lesson planning. I have used the the traditional planner book for years and it has always been very good to me. I could easily flip back and see what I what I did the year before as I planned the upcoming school year. I'm not a big fan of trying to fix things that are not broken, but I figured I needed to give it a try in the name of the Experiment. Needless to say, I was not disappointed.

Here is a shot of my desktop version of Evernote. I have created lesson plan notebooks for each class I'm teaching. Within those notebooks, I've created notes for the individual units I have created for the school year. For each unit, I do not place dates, because I want the flexibility to move units around as I need to. 

Within the notebooks for the specific classes, I have scanned and uploaded various assignments I had in paper form only and added them to new notes. For assignments I already had in digital form, I copied and pasted them into new notes. This was a very simple and smooth process. I now have every document I need to teach a full year of school. 

Since all of my students will have Evernote accounts, I can easily share the assignments with the students in specially created notebooks. I can take a note, copy it and place it in the shared notebook when I assign the work. No handouts, copies or lost work. It will be there for the students the moment I place it in the notebook. There will be a tremendous amount of time saved by not having to pass out assignments to everyone at the start or end of the class. 

I have also created notebooks that contain notes on tech tips for using the various tools. The students will have complete access to any and all information when they want and where they need it. Simple things like this will save everyone involved some time when it comes to troubleshooting. As the school year moves along, I will be able to add new notes to address issues that come up along the way. 

One of my favorite parts of lesson planning in Evernote is the ability to tag my notes. 

If I want to see all of the different essay assignments for first semester, I just need to search tags for "Essay writing" and "First Semester." Only those notes will appear in the search field. I can narrow the search down as much as I want. It is awesome. I was never much of a tagger when it came to using Evernote for personal use, but for lesson planning, it would be stupid not to tag everything. My notebooks are only going to grow over time, so tagging makes sense when I want to find something to edit it or even share it. Tagging is going to save me so much time down the road. No longer will I be digging through a filing cabinet looking for "that" assignment. A quick search of my tags will have it ready in a flash. 

As I look at the set up, I have to say the best part is the fact I do not need to re-invent the wheel a year from now. It took me hours to sit and plan out an entire school year for three classes, but it is worth it. I will not have to do it again. I will have to tweak assignments and I might remove or add readings, but the bulk of my content is saved for life. 

Another nice bit is that my lessons are available on my iPhone, iPad, home computer and anywhere I have Internet access. If I want, I can download all of these notes and access them when the Internet is down. I've spilt drinks on my lesson planner before, it was an awful experience. Now, it's not a problem. 

If you are looking for a new way to approach lesson planning, please take the time to explore how Evernote can change and improve the way you prepare for the school year. You will not regret it. 

If you want to start your Evernote journey now, follow this link to sign up!

- Nick

Using @Evernoteschools for Lesson Planning #EdChat

Since I started this Experiment to use Evernote in every aspect of my classroom, I wasn't really sure what I was going to discover. I was sure there would be some way that Evernote was not going to meet my needs and I would be forced to add another tool to my chest while I continue the experiment for the school year. One way I was weary of was lesson planning. I have used the the traditional planner book for years and it has always been very good to me. I could easily flip back and see what I what I did the year before as I planned the upcoming school year. I'm not a big fan of trying to fix things that are not broken, but I figured I needed to give it a try in the name of the Experiment. Needless to say, I was not disappointed.

Here is a shot of my desktop version of Evernote. I have created lesson plan notebooks for each class I'm teaching. Within those notebooks, I've created notes for the individual units I have created for the school year. For each unit, I do not place dates, because I want the flexibility to move units around as I need to. 

Within the notebooks for the specific classes, I have scanned and uploaded various assignments I had in paper form only and added them to new notes. For assignments I already had in digital form, I copied and pasted them into new notes. This was a very simple and smooth process. I now have every document I need to teach a full year of school. 

Since all of my students will have Evernote accounts, I can easily share the assignments with the students in specially created notebooks. I can take a note, copy it and place it in the shared notebook when I assign the work. No handouts, copies or lost work. It will be there for the students the moment I place it in the notebook. There will be a tremendous amount of time saved by not having to pass out assignments to everyone at the start or end of the class. 

I have also created notebooks that contain notes on tech tips for using the various tools. The students will have complete access to any and all information when they want and where they need it. Simple things like this will save everyone involved some time when it comes to troubleshooting. As the school year moves along, I will be able to add new notes to address issues that come up along the way. 

One of my favorite parts of lesson planning in Evernote is the ability to tag my notes. 

If I want to see all of the different essay assignments for first semester, I just need to search tags for "Essay writing" and "First Semester." Only those notes will appear in the search field. I can narrow the search down as much as I want. It is awesome. I was never much of a tagger when it came to using Evernote for personal use, but for lesson planning, it would be stupid not to tag everything. My notebooks are only going to grow over time, so tagging makes sense when I want to find something to edit it or even share it. Tagging is going to save me so much time down the road. No longer will I be digging through a filing cabinet looking for "that" assignment. A quick search of my tags will have it ready in a flash. 

As I look at the set up, I have to say the best part is the fact I do not need to re-invent the wheel a year from now. It took me hours to sit and plan out an entire school year for three classes, but it is worth it. I will not have to do it again. I will have to tweak assignments and I might remove or add readings, but the bulk of my content is saved for life. 

Another nice bit is that my lessons are available on my iPhone, iPad, home computer and anywhere I have Internet access. If I want, I can download all of these notes and access them when the Internet is down. I've spilt drinks on my lesson planner before, it was an awful experience. Now, it's not a problem. 

If you are looking for a new way to approach lesson planning, please take the time to explore how Evernote can change and improve the way you prepare for the school year. You will not regret it. 

I look forward to sharing with you more of the cool things I discover and the Epic Evernote Experiment continues. 

- The Nerdy Teacher