For the last several years now, I’ve been conducting coaching cycles with teachers in my building. I offer them four times a year, twice a semester and while I usually don’t offer them during this point in the school year because we have AP testing and standardizing testing with SOLs, it just happened that this was the only time that worked and surprisingly I had 6 teachers sign up, 3 of them being new teachers.
It was during one of these conversations that a new teacher brought up how much content they still wanted to cover. I remember glancing down at my screen and looking at the area that displays the date and time and realized we only had a month of school left. Her plan would need to greatly change. Which made me realize how many other newer teachers would not be prepared for these last few weeks?
So a few things to consider:
What content is left? Depending on your classes, you may have had to hit as much content as possible before AP or standardized testing happened, but in some rare cases that don’t have to abide by this, you can pace your content a little differently. As you enter the final weeks, look at what content is left and decide what are the most important concepts students need to know. You won’t be able to teach it all. Cover the most essential items and highlight supporting areas.
Type of final assessment? This may depend on your school, but more and more high schools are dropping traditional final exams and allowing teachers to give alternative assessments such as digital portfolios, or project based assessments such as a research project, designing an app or amusement park, or rethinking an idea. Project based assessments take longer to design, have students complete, and assess, so scheduling needs to be a priority. If you’re interested in learning more about alternative assessments, watch my latest Tech Tuesday episode:
Do you have seniors in class? If you teach high school, it may be possible that you only teach seniors or have a mix of age levels which include seniors. Graduations across the country are typically held before underclassmen are finished with school, so seniors are finished at a minimum of 3-4 days earlier than other grade levels. This also needs to be taken into consideration when deciding what content you have left to teach. Seniors may miss out on the last unit you want to teach.
Leave time to reflect. Especially as a first year teacher there are so many things that you learned and realized what worked and what didn’t. So leave time to reflect with students and either by asking them or giving them a survey to fill out, what did they like about your class, what could be improved on, etc. It may be tough to hear for some, but this is one of the most beneficial ways to get feedback from students and continue to improve.
Allow for creativity and passion. Again, due to AP exams and other standardized testing, you may have completed the content for your course. Even if you haven’t, use this time to design lessons or activities that allow students to demonstrate their creativity or work within their passions within your content. This can be extended to reviewing a unit already studied but digging deeper into the concepts or allowing for further exploration.
What other items of advice would you recommend to new teachers as they get closer to the end of the year? Please leave a comment below!
Ms Priester EDU 