New Teacher Tips / Your First Teaching Job
by Curtis Chandler · Published 04/21/2024 · Last modified 05/12/2025
As pre-service teachers anticipate their first classrooms, former Kansas TOY and teacher educator Curtis Chandler is ready with expert strategies to help them select the right schools and successfully complete the interview process. He stresses staying positive and being persistent.
The missteps of middle schoolers may be “developmentally appropriate” but we still need to guide students to do better, writes school leader Jody Passanisi. “Students this age often rise to the expectations that are set for them. That is developmentally appropriate, too.”
Watching a movie in class doesn’t have to be passive, says Jason DeHart. Teachers can engage students in a critical process of “reading” film and also responding as readers by creating video products. It’s time to broaden literacy education to meet students where they are.
Academic success relies on students taking charge of their learning. To achieve that goal, kids must learn to organize and study effectively. G/T Facilitator Sharon Ratliff shares strategies she uses to introduce and implant essential study skills in the middle school years.
Mona Iehl once labeled her math students high, medium or low and gave them different problems. Now she thinks about differentiation as the amount of support she offers so that every student gradually reaches grade level expectations working the same problems. Here’s how.
In Educator Bandwidth, Jane Kise and Ann Holm provide ways to reclaim your energy, passion and time and to gauge your bandwidth with a survey. Factors include balancing priorities, focusing through mental habits, fueling your brain, and more, writes educator Stephanie Choate.
Whether summer means it’s time to relax, bolster your professional know-how, improve your bank balance, or reconsider your profession, we have suggestions from your educator colleagues and other sources that can help. Plan now!
As students experience physical and emotional changes as part of adolescent development, body image can become a complex and sensitive topic. Reading books that explore body image can help. Kasey Short shares some favorite titles and questions for reflection and discussion.
Whether read individually or as a group study, Melissa Collins’ book will help educators understand the growth cycle of a teacher leader and to reflect on their own experiences. Collins includes teacher leader roles beyond the classroom, notes reviewer Stacy Haynes-Moore.
Students need to know what to expect when they enter our classrooms, writes teacher Kelly Owens. Consistency on the front end paves the way for more student autonomy and engagement throughout the lesson. Three tips can help teachers achieve “the loyalty to learning we want!”
