Techie Turtle Teacher

Did you like part 5 of this series about planning?  If you missed it, you can click on the picture above to see all the posts in this series! Today, I'm going to share some tips with you about observing your student teacher.  Keep reading to see what I have to say! Once your student teacher starts planning lessons, he/she will start teaching those lessons. If your student teacher is going to improve, you need to observe their teaching. It is very easy to get sucked into feeling like he/she isn't doing it right because it is different than how you would teach the lesson.  Try to let it go! I know that is easier said than done, but it will make the placement easier. Let your student teacher make mistakes. He/she will learn more from making mistakes than if you jump in to correct the lessons immediately. Make notes of the mistakes or when you would do something differently, but try to bite your tongue. It is important for the students to see...

Did you like part 4 of this series about communicating?  If you missed it, you can click on the picture above to see all the posts in this series! Today, I'm going to share some tips with you about planning.  Keep reading to see what I have to say! I feel like I tell you how important each stage is every time I write a post.  But, if you don't take the time to plan with your student teacher in the beginning of the placement, you will spend more time trying to catch up later. So... shortly after your student teacher starts with you, you need to start planning together.  This means spending time planning while sitting with your student teacher. In the beginning, you will do all the planning.  You will explain your thought process.  Now is a good time to give your student teacher copies of the curriculum if that hasn't been done already.  Your student teacher needs to see the how of planning. After a few weeks, you can ...

I hope you found my third set of tips useful! You can click on the picture above to see all the posts in this series. Communication is very important when working with your student teacher. As soon as your student teacher takes on responsibilities, it is important to communicate with him/her.  You need to make sure your expectations are clear. Here are a few simple guidelines to remember: 1.  If a problem comes up, discuss it IMMEDIATELY!  Don't wait.  It won't resolve itself on its own.  Even if you think it will just go away.  It won't.  So talk about something when it is a little problem so you don't have to deal with it as a big problem. 2.  Make sure to give verbal and written feedback after lessons. 3.  Ask your student teacher how he/she thinks things went.  Get their opinion before giving yours.  This encourages reflection. To go along with these blog posts, I have created a guide ...

I hope you found my second set of tips useful! You can click on the picture above to see all the posts in this series. Once your student teacher is introduced to the families, you need to set up a schedule for releasing responsibilities to your student teacher. If your student's school gives you a suggested schedule, you should follow that.  If not, you can use these guidelines to help you. You need to think about how long your student teacher should spend observing.  Make sure they have a few days to observe and take notes on routines.  This also gives them time to learn the names of your students. Once your student teacher has a chance to observe your teaching, then you can think about giving him/her more responsibilities. Start slowly.  Give your student teacher easy routines first - walking students to other places in the building, read alouds, transition times, etc. Then start planning and co-teaching with your student teache...

I hope you found my first set of tips useful!  You can click on the picture above to see all the posts in this series. The very next thing you need to do after preparing for your student teacher is to introduce him/her to your students and families.  Read on to find out some things you should do. 1.  On your student teacher's first day, introduce him/her to your students and make sure it is clear why they are there.  It is important for your students to see the student teacher as a teacher as well. 2.  Give your student some time during their first day there to chat with your students for a few minutes.  Some things they can share are: name of the school they are attending, hobbies or other interests, family, etc. 3.  Your student teacher also needs to be introduced to the parents of your students.  The easiest way to accomplish this is for your student teacher to write a letter to be sent home to parents.  The let...

I've agreed to take a student teacher for this semester.  My student teacher will be in my classroom 2 days a week.  Since this is the first time for her being in a classroom, I have a very important job to do.  I've had student teachers 2 other times and I want to share some things I've learned about being a mentor. I'm going to run this series until the end of the school year.  It most likely will run every other Thursday until I run out of tips. With that being said, here's my first tip in this series. The preparing stage is very important.  As soon as you agree to take a student teacher, you need to start preparing for it immediately.  Start making sure your room is ready for someone else to occupy. Your student teacher should be given a desk.   He/she will also need copies of your schedule and class lists.  Highlight names of behavior problems and academic needs. Make a list of important things you want...

If you want to join the linky, grab the Tech Tip Tuesday button.  Post about a technology tip.  Then link up below! Click { here } to fill out my form if you are interested in helping me improve my tech tips. ***************************** Do you want to know how people post shortened urls to their blog posts or other pages?  These short url codes are very popular when trying to save characters on Twitter. There are a couple different ones that I have used. The first one is from Google.  You just go to  https://goo.gl/ Paste or type the url that you want to shorten in the box. Let's say I want to link to my blog.  I would put the address of my blog in the box and then click on the shorten URL button. It will give you the short code for you to copy and show you a snippet of the page.  That way you can easily check to make sure you entered the original link correctly. Now, you can post the short code in a tweet and it won't take ...

If you want to join the linky, grab the Tech Tip Tuesday button.  Post about a technology tip.  Then link up below! Click { here } to fill out my form if you are interested in helping me improve my tech tips. ***************************** When you're creating products, do you get tired of using your mouse or trackpad to save, copy, paste, or bold text? You're in luck!  You need to use keyboard shortcuts.  I've compiled a list of my most frequent keyboard shortcuts.  These shortcuts definitely help me and I hope you'll learn a new one or two today! Keyboard shortcuts are really simple.  For almost all of the ones on my list, you just hold down control (on a PC) or ⌘ (on a Mac) and then type the letter that goes with the shortcut you want. For example, if I want to undo something that I've done, on a PC, I would hold down the ctrl key and then type z.  Poof, whatever I did is now gone!  This is so helpful if I'm testing something out...