So we have already discussed 5 ways to build a stronger classroom culture with structure and instruction. Today we are going to discuss ways to bring in joy to the classroom, the key is when done consistently they improve the overall joy and therefore culture of the classroom.

Last time we focused on the ways you can organize your classroom structures in order to support strong classroom culture in your classroom by using student names to welcome them to class, validating all questions, and using check ins. This time we are going to talk about two ways you you can structure the learning in order to build culture as you teach.

We all know how important relationship building is. But something that can derail relationship building is classroom culture. And most of the time this can feel totally out of the power of you as the educator. But there are things you can do to build a really strong classroom culture regardless of what the make-up of your students is and what is going on in their lives outside of the classroom. Here are 10 simple ways to build a strong classroom culture.

The third way to build relationships is to organize regular touch points into your classroom routines and structure so that you are connecting with and learning about your students and vise versa on a regular basis. When these are a part of the natural classroom routine they serve to not only contribute to the overall classroom community making sure it feels safe and fun to learn in the classroom.

We’ve all been there or heard it. You have an issue with a student and the first thing someone suggests is for you to work on your relationship with them. This can be so frustrating in a moment when you are struggling with a student or a class and relationship building is not the only thing that affects how a child acts or succeeds in your classroom. However, it is one thing you can control or influence. So usually the people asking you to work on your relationships with your students have their heart in the right place, even if it isn’t what you want to hear in the moment. One of the reasons this can be so frustrating when given advice is that what your told what to do without being give examples of how to do it. Or the examples are heavy asks on the teacher. So here are three easy ways to build relationships in your classroom.

There is a great comedic trop about teaching. The punchline is that what makes teaching a difficult profession is that we have to teach students subjects against their will. While this is funny because there is truth there, the key to empowering your students in their own learning and also saving your sanity as an educator is leveraging the power of choice in the classroom.

Once upon a time there was this belief that we were all one type of learner. Either visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. Decades later we know that everyone is all of these types of learners and that everyone learns best when we account for visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning in the classroom. Most teachers automatically include visual and auditory elements in their teaching. So what about making sure you are leveraging all three?

Learning is like lifting weights. If the students are always watching you lift weights, you are the one getting stronger, not them.

There are only two Mondays left in the school year, and I am dragging...
I feel like I need an IV of coffee. Sunday felt like a slow and special kind of torture where the light at the end of the tunnel was actually a train. And my patience feels like it starts at a 2 on the 10 scale.
At this point in the school year going to work feels a lot like working out. You dread the idea of going, you try to find every possible angle you can to try to get out of it, you finally convince yourself to buck it up and go, and once you're there you're glad you went and realize it wasn't that bad.
My tricks to get through the end of the school year for myself are:

Grading is an essential task, it's how students understand where they are vs where they can/should go. It is a key element to the learning process. However, the way we have taught teachers to do it is time consuming and flat out worthless. Giving feedback throughout the process that students have to use to move forward so that students get continuous grades and critiques is essential to being a quality educator. And for me this was the key to transforming myself as a teacher who wouldn’t join the statistics of the many others who burned out in the first 5 years and moved on to other professions.

I take a lot of PD. It's almost intervention worthy, really. In my 10 years of teaching I have amassed not just my Master's degree in Education but also 1500+ hours of PD classes.
And to be completely honest there is literally only 1 single class I have ever taken (which was delivered by a third party curriculum development group) that I truly found 100% pointless and an absolute waste of my time.
How can I possibly have taken more than 70 PD courses and only had 1 bad experience?

I made a lot of mistakes in my first 5 years of teaching. I tend to jump right into the things that I am trying. I would much rather cannonball into the cold pool of reality than dip my toe and think about it. This means that one of the primary ways that I learn is by making mistakes. And while the cold pool might not hurt you, it will surely take your breath away. So the less painful way to do this is to learn from the mistakes of others. So that you can let the water warm up a bit before you jump, here's a list of my top mistakes (so far) as an educator. And what I did to fix them.

Once upon a time there was a teacher who spent hours, days, maybe even actual eons planning the greatest lessons of all time. The lessons were the perfect mix of engaging and instructional. And then suddenly without warning, the evil time suck that is an assembly, or a fire drill, or a last minute meeting ravaged the classroom and all that the teacher had prepared was lost in an instant! Sound familiar?

One of the things I like the best about the workshop method is that by focusing on objectives and longer projects/assignments my teaching plans are more flexible so that I can better adjust when things inevitably go awry.

As a business owner in order to convince people to pay you for your expertise, you need to be an effective teacher. One thing that separates the people who can be successful from the people who are successful is they are effective at influencing and impacting other people. In short they aren;t just business people, they’re teachers

But the teacher I appreciate the most wasn't my favorite teacher, it was the teacher who truly challenged me.

One thing that is true about every school year is that the time right before major breaks is always kinda like living a real life Jumanji. You're exhausted. Your kids are exhausted. The weather is chaotic or swiftly changing. There seems to be a never ending list of things to do. And something totally unexpected always pops up right as you feel like you might actually drown in expectations. It's easy for you and your students to go crazy. Here are the two biggest mistakes I have ever made around major breaks and how I stopped being my own worst enemy.

However, most of the jobs I had I did because they were convenient and paid the bills. But it was within those jobs that I actually was able to gain some major skills that have benefited me in the classroom since my very first day of being a teacher.

March 2020 brought about many changes overnight to so many areas of our lives but especially school. As a teacher who has taught in the classroom, remotely, and completely virtually there are three lessons I have learned that will transform any classroom.