Monday, April 16, 2018

Teaching Tip #141




Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #141


This was aimed at beginning teachers, but can’t it apply to us all?

Commandment #10 – Keep ahead of your game

How do you keep ahead of your game?  One thing that I’ve found that always happened to me as a first year teacher was that I was – if I was lucky – just a day or two ahead of the students.

I thought those days were gone until we got new curriculum.  Then I was back to being just a couple days ahead of the students.

So how do you stay ahead?

When it comes to curriculum, I fear the only way (at least for me) to do this is through experience . . . the experience of teaching it several times.  And that takes, well, time.

But when it comes to staying ahead of the game in terms of PD, I think there are a number of ways I try to stay ahead: I’m a voracious reader.  I devour podcasts (in fact, we started a podcast club last summer to stay ahead of the game). I love talking shop. I spend 45 minutes a day on Twitter soaking up interesting articles related to teaching and English.  I go to conferences (TIES and MCTE have been excellent places to both learn new ideas and to see that what I’m doing in class is right in line with what others who are pushing the envelop are doing too).

How do you stay at the top of your game?





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