Teacher Tip#10: FREE Teacher Resources

When you're a teacher, it's amazing how much money you spend yourself on school supplies, making copies, and other resources necessary for your classroom activity or project.

I know that in the past ten years I've spent hundreds of dollars on school related items. I've bought stickers, pens, books, pencils, erasers, dry erase markers, overhead markers, paper, etc. And all of that quickly adds up.

One thing teachers learn to be really quick is resourceful. Here are some tips on how to find FREE resources for your classroom.

1. Look around your school. You'll be surprised to find out that in some closet or hole in the wall there is a plethora of stuff that's been forgotten and just sits on shelves collecting dust rather than being in use. Ask questions. Ask your administrators. Ask your department head/chair/leader. Ask and you shall receive! From filing cabinets that maybe another teacher has gotten rid of, desks, chairs, file folders, and other school supplies, you're first line of defense is your school itself.

2. Donorschoose.org is a great website where you can create a project, upload a picture of your classroom (make sure that it does not contain any information on your school or state), and give a brief explanation of what you need and why your students would benefit from it. It works on a point system. If your project gets funded and you complete your Thank You package, you get more points which means you can submit more project proposals. I have been most successful at getting projects funded right before the new year. It seems that wealthy, generous people are looking for ways to get rid of some of their money around the end of December. So make sure before you leave on winter recess that you have a project uploaded and active on the site. I've been successful in receiving a printer, toner, and several reams of paper that my classroom needed. It's a great program and it's quite easy to do.


3. The educationfund.org offers a Teach-a-Thon in many areas that you can participate in and raise money for your classroom. It works just like a walkathon where 'Teacher Champions' (business professionals from the community) come together to raise funds for education. If selected, you'll work with a Teacher Champion in helping them come up with a lesson that they'll teach your students. It's an awesome opportunity to get business professionals in your classroom offering their advice and suggestions to your students. It's a wonderful way for students to see how the concepts you learn in class are used in the real world. This year I was fortunate enough to have IT people come in to my statistics class and go over how they use spreadsheets to come up with projects that will get funded and impact the community. The students were engaged, the concepts we covered in class were solidified, and they got to ask these business professionals questions about their line of work. It's very interesting to have outsiders come into your classroom and teach your students. Many business people have no idea how difficult it is to attract students' attention and retain it for an hour or two at a time. It's a real eye-opening experience for them. It's also a great way for you to get money for participating. The amount depends on how much is raised and how many teachers have participated.

The Education Fund also offers Teacher Mini Grants and other Grant opportunities. Competition is fierce but if you put your time and effort into creating a great project, your chances at receiving additional funding will increase.

4. Adopt-a-classroom.org is another great website for teachers to get much needed resources.

Teacher Tip#9: Leave Your Personal Drama Outside of the Classroom

Every once in a while it's important to break the monotony of the classroom routine. Sharing personal anecdotes, jokes, or stories can be a way to draw the attention of students into the lesson, especially when you can tell that they're drifting away and daydreaming. This is particularly true in high school when you have students sitting in a class for 90 - 120 minutes at a time. However, be careful with what you say to your students.

Teacher Tip#9: Leave your personal drama outside of the classroom.

Some teachers fall into the trap of telling their entire life story to their students. They tell their students every last detail of how their wife left them and how miserable they are, or the teacher will bring a pessimistic attitude into the classroom because their life sucks and no one loves them and their own children don't call and on and on and on...

Don't be that person. Again, it's okay to share a personal anecdote that will bring the students' attention to focus and you can have a good laugh, but don't air your dirty laundry. The students really don't care, they will just comment about your life to other students and other teachers, and then everyone knows your business. It's a vicious ugly cycle that I highly recommend you stay away from.

Teacher Tip#8: Engage in Professional Development

Your first year of teaching is mostly about survival. How to manage discipline problems, getting to know your colleagues, school, and administration, and learning to find a balance between grading all those assignments and enjoying your personal life outside of teaching.

Of course, one of the things that's great about our profession is that there are many opportunities to participate in activities that will invigorate our teaching methodology, especially if we're veteran teachers.

Teacher Tip#8: Engage in worthwhile professional development.

I add the word worthwhile because not all professional development activities are worth your while. Some are redundant, some turn into gripe-fests, and some are just inappropriate to the subject or grade level you teach.

However, do a little research and find out from your colleagues in your school what recommendations they have for professional development. Some times there's a teacher in your area that's really good and will give you some good, expert advice and suggestions that will be well worth your time.

I am currently working on my gifted endorsement and by chance I stumbled onto a great teacher. I participated in an intense seven day workshop from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Pretty intense seeing as I teach high school and am used to be out by 2:30 p.m.

However, this professional development was well worth my time. One of the things that I learned from it was this video called 2 Million Minutes: A Documentary Calculating the Educational Divide. It is such a fascinating comparison of American, Chinese, and Indian students. You have got to see this video if you are an educator. It will definitely open up the discussion as to what our students are like compared to students from other countries. If anything, it'll open up a lot of discussion between you and your colleagues, and though we can't immediately change everything about our profession what we feel needs help, ask yourself what's the one thing you can do in your classroom to improve the education you're providing your students.

Teacher Tip#7: Grade Papers ASAP

Grading is such an ardous task for teachers. It's almost like doing laundry at home: just when you think you washed everything that's dirty in the house, you take off your clothes to take a shower before going to bed and voila! More laundry!

That's grading for teachers. Depending on whether you teach math, English, science, a foreing language, etc., the amount of work you grade will vary. Some teachers only use multiple choice assessments. This really isn't doing your students justice. At one point you need to find out if they really know the material or they are just good at guessing or working backwards from the answers.

Teacher Tip#7: Take control of grading before grading takes control of you!

As soon as you give a quiz or a test, do your best to grade those papers asap. Don't delay. Two main reasons why you should grade them as soon as possible:

1. Students will learn from their mistakes if you give them feedback on an assessment the next time you see them.

2. You're less likely to have a bunch of assignments piled up to grade, only causing you to prolong it even further because again, it'll become a chore that you want to avoid.

I teach high school math and so not only am I interested in whether or not the solution is correct, I also am concerned with the process. Some students could have made a mistake in the process and someone ended up with the correct response (or they could've looked at someone else's paper and there you go, you have a cheater on your hands).

However, I teach five different periods of math and there's an average of 28 students per class. If I give a test that's two pages front and back long, that's going to take me a really long time to grade.

Solution: Don't prolong. I rather stay an hour after school and get some grading done, then take the papers on a ride in my car to my house and back where they'll probably not get graded because once I get home I'm in mommy and wife mode!

If you have multiple classes, start with the largest one. Yes, I know it's probably not what you expected. You probably feel that if you start with the smaller ones you'll get encouraged to continue to that big one. For the most part, that's not true, or at least it hasn't been in my experience.

The times I've left my largest class last to grade, I've stared at those papers and thought, oh brother, that's a huge pile of papers. Whereas if I get the large class overwith right away, even if I do bring the other periods home, I can usually finish one period at a time faster, maybe while watching my favorite show and it's on commercials. So that gives me the energy to keep grading.

So that's some tips to make your grading days a little less stressful. Please feel free to share any other strategies. Happy grading!

Teacher Tip#6: Befriend the Custodians

There's so much that happen in the day of a teacher. A student can get sick and vomit on your classroom floor (gross but trust me, it happens). A student brings gatorade or juice and spills it all over the floor. Gum gets stuck on your clothes when you take a seat on one of the student desks to listen to their presentations. Your overhead's ligthbulb goes out (unless you're in a technologically advanced school with smartboards, I'm still in the stone age at my school!).

Teacher Tip#6: Make friends with the custodian assigned to clean your classroom.

Custodians work so hard to maintain our schools and classrooms clean. Most teachers complain that they don't do enough to keep our board ledges clean or our computer areas. It's probably true. Most custodians only have time to empty our trash bins and sweep and/or mop (if you're lucky) our classrooms. The truth is, many of them work alone cleaning an entire two or three story building consisting of 20 or more classrooms! They are human too and there are a lot of teachers who don't demand that their students pick up after themselves.

Make friends with your custodian because the day you lock your keys in your classroom and there's no one else around, they'll have happy to assist you. Or maybe when little Johnny leaves his lunch on your floor, they won't mind coming to your rescue.

I always make it a habit to give my custodian a holiday card with a $10-$25 gift card to the local grocery store right before winter break. It's my way to tell them thank you and it's a way to make sure to keep them happy so that the next time I need them, they'll be willing to help.

Teacher Tip#5: Vent to Another Teacher

I remember when I first started teaching. It's all I talked about to everyone! My friends, my family, even my pet knew about my day. "My kids here", and "My kids did this" were the words that came out of my mouth daily. However, the reality is, no one wants to hear it.

Teacher Tip#5: Find another teacher friend to talk to.

No one else if going to feel your pain and sympathize with you the way another teacher will. They've been there. Despite all the talk from people in our society that "anyone can teach", it's not true. Not ANYONE can teach. Grasping and maintaining teenager's attention for a one hour, 90 minute, or 2 hour block is not easy! It can be the worst two hours of your life!

If you have had a really bad day or if you've had a great day and feel like you have no one to share it with, please use this blog to let your frustrations out or share your successes. Just keep it clean and it'll hopefully make you feel better.

Teacher Tip#4: Be Organized

The amount of paperwork in teaching is overwhelming, especially for first-year teachers. School memos, lesson plans, grading, internal assessments, state exams, etc., there's so much to keep up with.

Teacher Tip#4: Be organized!

Keep a binder for every subject you teach. Use plastic sheet protectors to keep a record of a blank assignment/quiz/test and it's answer key. Do this for every subject you teach and you'll be glad you did so the following year.

Make notes to yourself by keeping a daily journal. At the end of each day, jot down what went right or wrong with the lesson. Keep it in a composition notebook and at the beginning of the following year, reflect on what changes you want to make.

Keep all of your student data together in a binder. It's the age of accountability in teaching and administrators are coming in to see how you're using student data to drive instruction. Keep this all in a binder by periods (if you teach multiple periods). I like to take my seating charts and make a note on the students' prior year's performance on the state exam. This way I know if there's low level students sitting together with no higher level achieving student to help them.

Being organized takes time and dedication, but in the end, it helps you maintain your sanity and not waste precious time reinventing the wheel!

Teacher Tip#3: Know Your Subject

I'm a high school math teacher. I've taught everything from applied mathematics, informal geometry, algebra 1 regular, honors, and all the way to IB. If you want students to buy into what you're saying, you need to know what you're talking about.

Teacher Tip#3: Know your subject.

My biggest pet-peeve is when I see an algebra teacher teaching systems of equations. If the result comes out 0 = 4 or 0 = 0, they teach the students that this means that there's no solution. Yet, this is incorrect. If you end up with 0 = 4, for example, that's never true, therefore, the system of linear equations would have no solution. They would be inconsistent and if you graph them this means the lines are parallel. But if you end up with 0 = 0, this is always a true statement. This means that the system of linear equations has infinitely many solutions. It's consistent and dependent. And if you were to graph the two linear equations, they would graph as the same line. Totally different answers.

Teachers who don't know their subject well and try to "wing it" are often discovered by their students. Students lose their respect for their teacher when they feel they know more than their teacher. This in turn becomes a problem for the teacher with classroom management.

So word to the wise, learn your content and learn it well.

Teacher Tip#2: Don't Talk Down to Your Students

Students walk into our classrooms from all walk of lives. They have their own problems, some far worse than anything we've EVER experienced in our own lives. Sometimes they're having a good day, and sometimes they're having a bad day. Don't let their bad day turn into your nightmare.

Teacher Tip#2: Don't talk down to your students.

If you respect students, they'll respect you back. If you treat them like they are just a bunch of know-nothing kids, they won't respect you either.

I have seen situations go really sour when teachers get in students' faces demanding that they do their work or don't talk back.

If you don't respect your students by respecting their space when you speak to them, by raising your voice and screaming at them, they won't respect you back! Plain and simple.

Assertiveness is the key to your classroom management success. You don't want the students to run the class. They need to know that you are boss, but you will demonstrate this through being fair and assertive with your rules. It takes a clever teacher and some reverse psychology to make it through the day sometimes. Even worse, it takes just one rotten apple to spoil a bunch.

Respect is key. If the students know you respect them, they will probably apologize for any outburst or misbehavior. After all, they could just be having a bad day, nothing to do with you, so don't bring yourself into the equation.

Teacher Tip#1: Dress Professionally

It's incredible how many business professionals look down upon teachers. Teachers do not get the same respect as other professionals, at least not in the U.S. This is obvious from how much teachers get paid compared to how much work they must put in to their job.

Have you ever heard the phrase, "those who can't teach" or have you heard someone comment, "anyone can be a teacher"?

There are many people out there who simply feel that anyone can walk into a classroom and 'teach' those students content that they already know. I beg to differ.

I've been a high school math teacher for 10 years now. It hasn't been an easy job to do at all. It's been rewarding in more ways than I can count, but definitely not easy. There were times when I've contemplated leaving the profession because dealing with high school students isn't a walk in the park. They each have their own lives, personal problems, fears, experiences, etc. that they bring into the classroom.

However, when I look across my high school, I can see why many professionals in the business world look down at teachers. For one, it's the way many teachers dress to teach at school.

If you want to gain your students' and parents' respect, you should definitely dress in a professional manner. Now, I don't mean suit and tie everyday, or pantyhose and a dress everyday. But at least slacks, shoes, and a nice shirt. It's amazing how many teachers look like they woke up late to go to work, threw on the first thing the found in their drawer, and went to teach. They wear sneakers everyday and don't bother to even brush their hair some times.

Teacher Tip#1: If you want to be treated like a professional, dress like one.

Yes, there are times when dressing down is appropriate. I myself am a club sponsor and on Fridays will wear my club or school t-shirt with jeans. But at least I try to wear a nice skirt, slacks, and work shirt the rest of the week. It's important to dress like a professional if you are to get your students to treat you like one.