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Agenda
Welcome
Andrea Giunta
Elementary and Secondary Templates:
The First Five Days
Andrea Giunta
Engaging Elementary Students
Kim Manning Ursetta
Preparing Your
Secondary Classroom
Josh Eckersley
Questions & Closure
National Education Association (NEA)
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
7:00 p.m. (EST)
Collect Materials that Cost You Nothing
Ask friends and relatives to save magazines, newspapers,
scraps of material, yarn, arts and crafts supplies from past
holidays, and other items that are useful in making
posters and collages. Collect and store in class. Keep
collecting through each school year.
Make Posters to Display in Your Classroom
Know the policies, procedures, and rules for students of
your grade level or department. Make new or refresh old!
 Type up/refresh:
Letter of introduction (for students and/or parents),
lessons and activities, homework assignments, restroom
passes, Substitute Teacher Folder for the first five days.
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Establishing rapport, procedures, rules, and content will help your entire school year run smoothly.
Taking time to focus on these four categories up front is an investment to support a great teaching
and learning environment for the school year. In elementary school we teach the desired behaviors and
guide student performance in those behaviors. In secondary school we give our students the
opportunity to practice the desired behaviors according to your style and subject matter requirements.
Teaching a procedures effectively requires more than just telling students what we want and how we
want it. As Mark Twain once famously remarked, “If teaching were the same as telling, we’d all be so
smart we could hardly stand it.” When we take the time to not only explain it, but also to show it,
model it, have students practice it multiple times in a row, debriefing after each time, then we see the
magic happen.
Take notes on what works and what doesn’t work during the first five days and make adjustments to
refine and perfect! Update your Getting to Know You activities or tasks within each activity to be
culturally responsive. Update with current popular songs, gadgets, technology, current events.
Over the summer, make or update your substitute teacher folder with bell schedules, emergency
procedures, helpful colleagues near your classroom, and emergency lesson plans. Check the contract
or district policy for any requirements. https://www.neamb.com/professional-resources/8-thingsyour-substitute-needs-to-succeed.htm
NEA Today has multiple boards on Pinterest that provide tips, ideas, advice, and support from
educators who have made our beautiful profession their life's work.
*Links are provided in the templates.
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Schedules
Odds and Ends
Daily and Pull Out
Specialist
Art, Music, PE-Elementary
Labs: Science, Computer-Secondary
Alternate: Early Release, Late Start, Assemblies
Computer Log In Passwords
Paper Attendance Rosters (per period) Keep Current!
Back up Activities, Time Fillers
Where to Find Things
Behavior Management
Map of the Classroom
Seating Charts (For each Subject/Period)
School Campus-highlight restrooms near your class
Class Rules
Rewards and Consequences
Helpful Colleagues: Names, Room Numbers
Helpful Students: Names & Photos
Who’s Who
Procedures and Routines
Attendance List(s)
List Para Educators, Secretaries, Custodians
Faculty Roster and Main Office Roster w/telephone numbers
For Your Classroom
School wide (lunch, recess, dismissal, assemblies)
Emergency-Fire, Lock Down, Tornado
Student Info
Emergency Lesson Plans
Individual Health Plans
Behavior Plans
504 Accommodations
IEP Accommodations
ELL Accommodations
Behavior Plans
Know what is required! If a certain number of days
has not been designated, supply at least 5 days. Always
review your subfolder and refresh after an absence.
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Having students pair-share (or turn and talk with a partner) is a routine used frequently throughout an
average day of teaching. During the first week you will want to model how you want this to look and
sound and have students practice it. Below are some tips on teaching pair-shares.
Having assigned “elbow partners” (partnering with the person sitting next to you) for pair-sharing
makes it go more smoothly and more quickly. Consider this when making your seating charts for desks
and carpet. Note, however, that while many teachers like to set up seating charts so that lowperforming students are paired with high-performing students, it can be just as effective, if not more
effective, to pair low-performing students together, so that they have to make more of an effort and
can’t rely on the high performing partner to do the talking and thinking. Likewise, paring highperforming students together allows them to push each other’s thinking and effort.
Designate a specific, but short, “think time” prior to the pair-share, such as 12 seconds. Have a signal
that the students know that indicates when think time is over and it is time to share.
Designate one partner as the first speaker and give a specific time frame. Say, “Partner 1, it’s your turn.
You have 30 seconds to share.” Then partner 2 gets a turn. Make sure the students know what
attention signal you will be using when you need them to switch roles, and they know what to do when
they see or hear the signal.
Provide prompts posted for English Language Learners to have sentence frames that can help them
form sentences to respond to your prompts for partner share time. One example would be:
__________________ is the most important person in my life
because______________________________________.
 Acknowledge that everyone brings something to the table.
 Understand that deculturalization is a part of the history of schooling in the
United States and how we can reverse it.
 Self-educate yourself about your students and their families
 Learn the language to communicate with families.
 Reading about their histories and bringing that into the classroom.
 Unlearn deficit mindsets/thinking.
 Using the families, and resources in their communities to help build collective
knowledge and ways of seeing the world.
 Provide specific examples of how we build on the cultural assets of students:
 Tie in their culture’s narratives and stories into the readings and work
 The Ethnic Studies initiatives
 Allow them to tackle problems that affect them most
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The PowerPoint presentation is available for
download, so sit back and relax. You don’t
have to copy every word!
The webinar will be recorded and available to
you in case you forgot the answer to the
great question that was asked during
discussion.
Supplemental materials are available for you
right now so you can get started at your
earliest convenience.
Engaging Elementary Students
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Working in groups helps build teamwork
skills and allows students to get to know each
other and learn from each other.
It also helps the teacher get to know
students’ learning styles and strengths.
Without even trying, they will learn
something!
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Set up procedures for: Collaboration, Data
collection (i.e. composition book, folder, graphic
organizer) and Safety!
Create a classroom chart establishing your
science experiment norms.
Design experiments based around a core idea
After conducting experiments, allow time for
students to reflect on findings, as well as how
they collaborated: what did they do well and
how can they do better next time?
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Choose a trade book series or chapter book,
and create an activity to do each day that
responds to the book.
◦ Choose an engaging book that takes into
consideration the cultures and interests of students
in your community.
◦ Practice basic story elements like summarizing,
character identification and development, compare
and contrast, and inference.
◦ Create a “book” that captures their activities/
responses from the week and send it home on
Friday to read with their families! Display books and
photos in your room and hallways.
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Allow students to “play games”
◦ When introducing math manipulatives, give
students a few days to “play” with them so that they
are then ready to use these manipulatives as
learning tools.
◦ Choose games that practice mastery standards
from the previous school year.
◦ Set clear routines for using and returning games
and manipulatives to storage areas.
◦ Color code any teacher created games (like flash
card sets) so that they are easier to sort when they
get mixed up!
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Create a day’s worth of generic lesson plans
that you can leave for an emergency!
Take the time to cement routines and
procedures- even if it takes a couple weeks!
Find a veteran colleague that you trust that
can help you navigate the school, district, and
community.
Remember to take care of yourself and stay
balanced! Work hard, play hard!
Believe in your students!
Preparing Your Secondary Classroom:
Adolescents, Tweens, and Teenagers, Oh My!
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Write out lesson plans on TaskStream (or equivalent).
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If your building administration lets you set up early, take advantage of it.
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Get odds and ends out of the way early.
◦ It’s always best to plan at least a month ahead.
◦ You will want to check with your building principal before coming in to set up.
◦ Fill out beginning-of-the-year paperwork before day one.
◦ Assign books if you have your class roster (be careful not to do this too early
though).
◦ Prepare any posters and bulletin boards to make your classroom welcoming.
◦ Have a set of classroom rules somewhere in your room that is easy to find and
reference.
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Create seating charts and do a little research on your future students.
Make necessary copies
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Prepare a good website and a tutorial sheet on how to log in.
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◦ Maps of the school
◦ Your class syllabus (more on this later)
◦ First few days’ activities/worksheets
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It’s okay to be nervous (we ALL are).
This is the most important day
of the year.
◦ You set the stage for all expectations, policies, etc.
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Make your homeroom students (if you have them) feel
welcome and comfortable.
◦ Chances are, they’re nervous too.
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Try to balance authority, support, and humor.
Come up with an ice breaker activity.
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Distribute books to students (if you have them).
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◦ This should allow you and your students to learn a little
something about one another.
◦ You are not above participating in the activity yourself- make sure
you show your students that.
◦ Your icebreaker should have some meaning to it and not just
something to pass the time.
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Notecards
◦ Have notecards at desks to show students where they sit.
◦ Ask them to fill out
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Nickname
Favorite subject
Hobbies
Perceived skill in your class
What you can use [subject] in real life
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This also lets the students know a
little about you.
◦ Create your own model to show them
how it is done
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Scavenger Hunt
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Expectations
◦ Allow students to get up and move around.
◦ Encourage students to get to know one another.
◦ Have students write what they expect to gain from your course.
◦ This should take place after your introduction to the course.
◦ Be sure to address your favorite responses the next day anonymously.
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A syllabus is an important tool to have for a middle or
high school class.
A few things you may want to include:
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Your email address and school phone number.
Your room number.
Supplies needed for class
Expectations (for both them and you)
Homework, classwork, assignments, labs, projects, and
assessment policies.
Grading policy.
Attendance policy.
Classroom rules.
Other miscellaneous bits of
information you want your students
to know.
Parental contract.
(this one is very important!)
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Website Tutorial
Seating Chart Blank
Seating Chart Example
Syllabus
(feel free to edit and use
for yourself!)
My Classroom Website
(for ideas and for your
viewing pleasure)
For additional information on this webinar
topic,
please contact the NEA Student Program
([email protected])