For many of us, the upcoming school year is quickly approaching! As my summer closes, I have been gearing up for this fresh start. Shopping through Target, pouring over Pinterest, adding ideas to my Pinterest boards, creating new educational resources, and reconnecting with colleagues all help when transferring back into the teacher life!
Over Summer, I reflected in many ways. Learning to relax and remember why I love teaching so much. In addition, I revitalized how to be happy. Putting yourself first and ensuring your happiness reflects your teaching are all thoughts I worked on during vacation. I am so thankful I had this time to recover but so excited for what lies ahead! After all, happy teachers have happy students.
To prepare for the year, I have thought about what changes I want to make. Color schemes, classroom setup, classroom rules and management, and overall colleague relationships! Noting what I wasn’t pleased with last year helps this process tremendously. With my last two weeks of vacation, I plan to investigate and research what might work best for my upcoming assignment. I also intend to expand my relations with colleagues. Not only do they offer great recommendations and ideas, but they also offer irreplaceable friendships inside and outside the workplace! Through all of my reflection, there are three things I’ve learned that will help me become a better teacher.
As I finish up this last stretch of my summer vacation, here are three things that I’ve learned:
1. I know exactly what I want to improve this year for my new students. I want to work on providing more meaningful feedback to my students. To do this, I am going to grade less often…but when I grade, it will be with meaningful feedback that will help my students learn.
2. It is okay to not have a picture-perfect classroom on the first day of school. This is one that I keep telling myself. I am less than three weeks away from having students in my room, and I have yet been able to step inside my new classroom. Decorating my room will be a work-in-progress, and that is perfectly okay. In fact, I am kind of excited to have my students help in the process.
3. I want to utilize my prep time more efficiently. Last school year some teachers commented on my Instagram page that they schedule out their prep time. I totally plan on doing that this new year. Two days will be for grading, two days will be for planning, and one day will be for classroom prep. I really feel this will help with time-management.
