A Thing or Two I've Learned

This week I've been thinking and planning the next school year.  These are the five things I've learned as I think about starting the new year:

1.  Hit the Ground Running
     You only have 180 days to make a difference.  You don't have time to get to know your kids starting on Day 1.  Get to know your students as much as possible through their assessment data, if you have access to it over the summer.   If you don't, have a discussion with your administrator.  What policies could your district have  in order to give teachers the data they need before the start of school?  In my school, we get administrative passwords for online assessments.  This way we have access to all of the data, rather than just the kids we had last year.  We also have portfolios that pass from grade level to grade level.  If you don't have these, I strongly suggest they you try to start them.
    Start forming plans before you meet your students so you can start addressing their needs as soon as possible.  I allow seven days to teach routines and establish rules.  By Day 8, we are up and running with a full curriculum.
2.  Don't Wait To Try Something New
     If a child is not making progress by the end of the first month, they are not going to make progress unless you change something.  Monitor students weekly and document, document, document.  Notice I did not say test or assess.  Monitoring can be as simple as doing an individual running record or a weekly random math facts check.
3.  Use a Team Approach
    If your best efforts are not working, reach out.  Share your documentation with others.  Ideally, you should have some time as a grade-level team each week to do this.  One of my favorite videos that illustrates the importance documentation and teamwork is from my digital mentor Jenn Jones of Hello Literacy.  A link to the video and my blogpost in response, with modifications for intermediate level students, can be found here.
4.  A Little for a Long Time is Better Than a Lot for a Short Time
     Programs where students do a short skill every day, or every day for an entire term, yield much better results then spending an entire lesson on a given skill for several days.  Examples of programs that do this effectively are the Math Boxes in Everyday Math, Shurley Language, and Saxon Math.  If you use these programs, never skip the review part of the lesson.  If you don't have programs like this, then make some.  Teachers Pay Teachers is a great source of supplemental programs.
5.  Small Increases in Student Accountability Yield Great Results
     Students can't improve if they don't know the expectations and how they measure up. And don't expect them to pay a lot of attention to rubrics or your written comments.  You will need to model this behavior and show students how these tools benefit them.  Have students reflect on their growth at least once per term.  Keeping a portfolio is great for this.  Data Walls are also a nice way to encourage students.  This is my video on data walls from Youtube.