I'm looking for advice: I am a math interventionist and in my new school, I have an assistant, which is completely new for me! I have met her and we seem to hit it off super well. I'm just looking for ideas on how to balance leading her and also give her autonomy to use ideas that she also has for our small groups. She has experience so it's not as though this is brand new to her.
What are classroom positive behavior strategies to use? I have tried marble jar and reward tickets before.
Innovative instructional strategies:
What are some of your favorite instructional strategies?
One of my absolute favorite strategies for reading fluency - and even oral language development - is utilizing silly voices! I have created over 200 voices for educators and families to use! Teachers and families can take advantage of early literacy reader's theater scripts and implement repeated readings using a variety of these voices. It is SO much (more) fun to read or speak in a silly voice!
Voices provide skill development in prosody, inflection, word attack, and so much more!
Check out these FREE resources at: https://www.ginapepin.com/apps-1/teaching-resources
Foundational reading skills for K-2:
How do you teach reading to a group of students of different reading levels?
To begin the school year, I use a Google spreadsheet to help organize data. I take pre and post test/assessment data from summer school assessments/projects, a student's spring and fall Acadience score (including sub test scores), and their spring, *summer (if applicable) and fall NWEA MAPs ELA score and organize, analyze etc. and arrange students by skill discrepancy, need etc... students less than 9%tile in multiple areas - and data points - are considered Tier 3 in our system and I meet with them asap for intervention. Students in Tier 3 reading intervention are grouped this way - but students in Tier 2 are grouped by classroom times (for ease of scheduling per teacher request) first, and then they are broken up into smaller groups to better align with skill gaps.
Does your school or district plan an open house prior to the first day of school, on the night of the first day of school, or sometime afterwards?
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How do you build community in a new school setting as a new teacher? It seems like other teachers have already formed their own groups.
I'm having a lot of anxiety about starting the school year! What are some tactical things I should do over the summer to feel more prepared, and what should I deprioritize?
My new school is looking for ways that related arts (music, art, and PE) can integrate math into their lessons easily. Any ideas or research that you’ve found that helps this work? We are doing this Kinder through 5th grade.
With this being an election year, what are some of the activities that you do at your school to promote voting? With that, how do you maintain balance in the classroom with the current climate?
How do you best support students who are below grade level in math? How do you meet their needs, without holding back the rest of the class?
What are some ways you are integrating technology into your classroom this year?
What is your approach to IEP goal writing? How do you determine the appropriate goal for each student?
How do you manage difficult parents that seem to blame teachers for their child's behavior and absences?
How do you know when to and how to refer a student to a study team?
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What advice do you have for the job search for new teachers? How can you stand out in a sea of potential candidates to help land an interview and what are there hidden "rules" to remember while applying for jobs?
How do you structure your prep time to get through all of your tasks?
What are ways you recognize and reinforce positive behavior? Do you have consequences for poor behavior?
