Students are not robots. We can’t press a button to
program their learning and expect it to be consistent day in, day
out. Things happen that are beyond our control. Take the end of the
school year for example. Think for two seconds about your students
and how the climate of the room changes when they realize there are only two,
five or even ten days of school left. Pretty
chaotic, right? Thought so. Read on if you’d like to learn how
to make this time more productive.
The last weeks of school have always been a point
of concern to me. I look around and realize the majority of our time
is spent either finishing last minute assessments or cleaning up the
classroom and preparing materials for summer storage. Every time I get
into this habit I always think about how there has to be a better use
of my time. There has to be something I can do that is far more academically
productive, yet at the same time engages these children who are three seconds
away from going into full blown summer mode.
This past school year, I had an idea to change
all of the mismanaged time. I thought long and hard then decided to turn
the month of June into something new and exciting for the kids. I realized that
not only was it important to keep their attention, but it was also important to
provide them with quality instruction that would help them with their
transition into 5th grade. I decided to take a risk and try
three brand new programs that I have never done before. I wanted to select
things that were not only new to me, but new to my students as well. After a
lot of thinking and researching I decided to facilitate
a BreakoutEDU lesson, a Mystery Skype session and
also try my hand at using periscope to connect student families to
our classroom. At the time, each of these programs were completely
new to me. I had read about them, but had never used them first hand.
So why on earth would I take these rambunctious kids
and do something that was 100% out of our daily routine? I did this
because not only was I providing my students with additional skills they will
need in their future, but this was also a perfect time for me as the teacher to
try out new programs for the following school year. Now let me tell you, they
learned a lot… But I learned a TON! It was a perfect opportunity to get the
kids focused again yet at the same time it provided me with an outlet
to reflect on my practice and figure out how to make my instruction better
for future classes.
Responses from parents were through the roof. They
were raving about how excited their kids were for all of our new projects.
A few parents even admitted that their kids were quoted saying they did not
want to leave school for summer. Now I don’t know about you, but when a kid
says they don’t want to leave you know you’re doing something right.
My challenge to you is to make the end of the school year a priority for stretching your instruction. Although it may be so far away that it’s
completely out of your frame of mind, make a note, set a reminder, or write on
your calendar to use the last few weeks of school as an experimental month for you and your students.
Start by researching tool and programs that are completely out of your
comfort zone, study up on them throughout the school year and then implement
them in June (or whenever your district wraps up) and see how things go. I encourage you to make time to push
yourself beyond your comfortable place and become a better educator for our
students. Push yourself for you, but even more than that, push yourself for
them.