• A picture of where students are academically and/or social/emotionally.

Work smarter not harder:

• Systems, routines, and organization. Think of your day linearly. How can you rearrange your day so that you can work with smaller groups?

WHY teach:

• “You get to wake up every day and know that you make a difference.”

Biggest Piece of Advice:

• Take any advice/resources from your school community. You have nothing to prove!

Connection:

• I too did not grow up in a diverse area, so it’s important that we recognize that and do our own learning on how to fill those gaps.

WSNH: design assessments strategically. You don’t have to make assessments long as long as it covers your purpose.

Teach to the test!

Go to assessment strategy: white boards

—- OTR!

Book: Teacher Clarity Playbook

Go to assessments: Exit tickets, quick sketches, sticky notes. Quick assessments = best assesssment.

WSNH: Let the kids do the hard work! Dry erase boards. Quick and easy is best.

Piece of Advice: give your kids nicknames (connections, relationships). When kids feel loved things will go smoother in the classroom.

You can’t do too much “procedure” practice!

Student work wall

Flexible seating (FB marketplace!)

Wondering wall

Go to assessments: whiteboards, sticky notes, small groups with teacher

WSNH: collaboration with teach team

Advice: don’t walk alone, go into other’s classrooms

Resources: social media for new ideas

What’s Your Genius wall: students can switch their paper out whenever they want

Student choice wall

Anchor charts!!! — have students stick sticky notes onto anchor chart as an exit ticket.

POWER IN THE MESS.

Go to assessments: benchmark assessments, listening to students read, (combination of these things instead of state assessments)

Look at students skills/strengths and hone in on them. We don’t know what kids’ gifts are until we look at data.

Hold students to a high standard!

Biggest piece of advice: surround yourself with positive people. Reflect on why you’re doing this. Shut out the negative chatter! Exercise, limit social media.

Behavior Snap: Quick behavior data app!

Why teach? the students will change your life and you will remember them forever. Students need someone like you who believes in them.

Go to assessments: Hands on, fast and easy

• “Show me” with cubes and walk around to assess

Materials

• Students have their own tool kits! (Cubes)

  • Then teacher doesn’t have to pass things out (quick!)

• Rituals and routines (practice for first month)

• Anchor Charts

Work smarter not harder

• Pick one day of the week to come early and prep for the next week

• Don’t take work home— set boundaries

Greatest Advice: Be extra nice to secretaries and custodians! Leave your home troubles at home.

Book: Out of My Mind

Tips:

• don’t keep secrets from students (here’s what I want you to learn, this is how I plan for you to get here, etc. Let them know your plan).

• Give students teaching opportunities. Shows their understanding of a concept

• open ended “tests”

• students self monitor their standards and if they met those goals

• make small changes to make a big impact

Relationships

• know and care about your kids

• find out what is effective for each individual

Books: Culture Code, Small Bets

Why teach: to be stable and consistent adults in children’s lives

Go to assessment: rubrics! Customize it.

WSNH: Rubrics, because there is no guessing game. We don’t need to have massive amounts of homework to see if students are learning. Less to grade!

Students need to be able to see exactly what the expectations are. Then they can also self assess.

Advice: procedures and routines from day 1. Go back and review with them.

Books: Learning by Doing, Excellence in Every Classroom

Go to assessments: small groups! Allows for connection with all students. It’s not just what the standards show you.

WSNH: be a team. Use different strengths for the whole group’s advantage.

Books: The Gift of Dyslexia, The Morning Meeting Book, Despite the Best Intentions (SPED)

Find out what every kid loves. They should know that you care.

Have hard conversations with parents— it is worth it.

Tip: phone calls over emails. Tones can be read wrong in emails.

Why teach: Impact. You play a role in children achieving their dreams.

WSNH: work efficiently with your team; have a framework and a process. Be consistent!

Advice: Respect your impact

Books: Thinking Fast and Slow

Why teach: kids need you.

Children are the people of today and the people of tomorrow.

I noticed that many of the guest mentors’ advice revolved around building a sense of community. Whether that be through showing kindness to your custodial staff, developing relationships with other teachers, or sharing resources, a community can support teachers mentally, emotionally, and professionally. I also noticed that many of the mentors discussed the importance of establishing strong classroom procedures and routines early on, and reviewing them frequently throughout the school year. I think they mentioned this as it is important for a smooth-running class, thus providing more time and opportunities for assessment.

2. What are the strategies that you hear most often?

While listening to these ten educators, I most often heard strategies that were quick, purposeful, and allowed students to be doing most of the work (work smarter not harder!). For example, more than one teacher emphasized the use of whiteboards, exit tickets, and small groups with the teacher. I think having designated small group rotations will be especially useful — it allows for relationship building and the most valuable “assessing” of students possible.

3. What lessons will you add to your toolbox from listening to these mentors? 

These mentors had some great advice that I will definitely carry with me. One lesson I will definitely be adding to my toolbox is known as “power in the mess” from Christina Williams. I learned from her that we should make our classrooms student-centered by incorporating “What’s Your Genius?” walls and giving them overall choice in the classroom decor. Another lesson I will be adding to my teacher toolbox is the intention of staying up to date on all things education. All of these teachers had some sort of book or podcast that they use to inform their teaching. I aspire to be the best teacher I can be, but that’s only possible if I am going the extra mile to better myself.

4. Which Mentor did you connect with? Explain why!

I would say I connected with Christina Williams the most. In this era of education, it hasn’t felt right to me that many classrooms don’t seem student-centered enough. I often find myself thinking, where is the color? Where is the student artwork? She does a great job of making the classroom feel like it was made for her kiddos, and I think that’s really powerful in cultivating rapport and enjoyment at school. I also loved her emphasis on anchor charts because I benefited from these the most as a student. Her strategy of having students write takeaways onto sticky notes and pasting them on their correlating anchor charts is an incredible way to assess kids! I will definitely be stealing that. In conclusion, I can definitely see why Christina was selected as a KTOY. I aspire to be like her!

7. What are one or two questions you would like to pose to a Mentor Educator?

The questions posed to these mentors were very useful. I wouldn’t remove any of them. I guess some other wonderings I have would be more behavior-related:

a) How do you accurately assess students when they struggle with compliance?

b) How do you recharge after school when you have challenging student behavior?