The New Teacher's Guide to Overcoming Common Challenges

Curated Advice from Award-Winning Teachers

Anna M. Quinzio-Zafran, Elizabeth A. Wilkins, Anna M. Quinzio-Zafran, Elizabeth A. Wilkins

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000216653
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This practical, hands-on guide offers support for your first years in the classroom by offering strategies to overcome ten common challenges found in rural, suburban, and urban school classrooms. The tips are shared by National Board-Certified Teachers, National Teachers of the Year, and other experienced educators. The New Teacher's Guide to Overcoming Common Challenges provides:

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• 100+ downloadable and customizable resources for new teachers to modify and use in PK-12th grade classrooms.

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• Web access to an online new teacher social media community including New Teacher Talk podcasts (available on iTunes, Spotify and PodBean [https://newteachersguide.podbean.com/]), Twitter Chats (@NewTeacherTalk1), Instagram (@newteachertalk), blogs, and accompanying webpage: newteachersguide.org.

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• Timely advice that addresses the shift to remote and hybrid learning brought about by the world pandemic.

This book is used by PK-12 school districts who offer new teacher induction programming, traditional and alternative teacher preparation programs, high school teacher cadet programs, and individual teachers for personal professional learning. Don't face the challenges alone—learn from those who have been there!

Chapter 1

Teaching During a Pandemic

Cultivating Resiliency in Times of Crisis

Tonia Holmes-Sutton, EdD, NBCT

Nevada State Director for Teach Plus

NBPTS Board Director

Twitter: @tholmessutton

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/toniaholmessutton

It wasn’t long after Governor Sisolak issued a Declaration of Emergency in the State of Nevada that the closure of all public, charter, and private schools was announced. It was Sunday, March 15, 2020. Nevadan teachers posted on social media about the school closures, wondering and worried about how they would lead and serve students and families in a crisis that the World Health Organization had declared a global pandemic. Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was anticipated to be the worst pandemic virus since 1918, when an H1N1 virus infected nearly 500 million people worldwide.

As teachers networked and collaborated with one another to ensure that the needs of their students were met, they discovered that the systemic inequities that were ever present in the teaching and learning communities of the state’s urban and rural districts were now exponentially magnified. Unable to return to the schools that served as safe havens to hundreds of thousands of students throughout the state, teachers learned that children and families weren’t necessarily sheltered, safely, at home. With the closure of the schools came the closure of Nevada’s casinos and all nonessential businesses – and the immediate loss of nearly 300,000 jobs, many of which employed students' families. Contending with incredible financial losses to their households, families were anxious about food insecurity and shelter, while also being concerned about becoming teaching partners to their children’s teachers. Teacher leaders readied themselves to meet the unanticipated needs of students and families and orchestrated integrated community supports to provide essential resources to the state’s 425,000 students.

Southern Nevada, home to nearly 75 percent of Nevada’s residents, found teachers initiating community resource pages on social media to provide and deliver food to students and families that weren’t near the school district’s food distribution locations. Teacher leaders, some of whom served as Fellows in the Teach Plus Nevada Teaching Policy Fellowship, formed coalitions with families and community partners in successful advocacy for additional locations for food distribution in communities of high need. They also designed professional learning communities within and across school sites and grade levels to address the expectations of remote learning, lesson planning, and networking as well as to problem solve the challenges of student engagement. They also offered social-emotional support to one another in the most uncertain and stressful times of their teaching careers. Partnering with family members, who prior to COVID-19 may have entrusted academic responsibility to the schools, teachers held family meetings and one-on-one sessions with family members, via video platforms and cell phones, to help them become more adept at supporting their children’s learning at home. Fueled by purposes and passions that had led them to education as a career, teacher leaders forged collegial relationships across state lines and engaged in national professional learning opportunities provided by leading education organizations, national and international educational coaches, and teaching colleagues with expertise in diverse content areas. They discovered that they were far more resilient than they had ever imagined they could be in the face of such adversity. And while caring for the needs of their own families, as well as that of their students, they engaged in systems advocacy and held policy discussions with members of the State Board of Education and the State and Deputy Superintendents of Public Instruction to reconceptualize teaching and learning in the digital divide.

Empowered by one another’s courageous leadership and grace, they embraced leadership roles not officially assigned to them, and they designed and redesigned teaching and learning spaces that reimagined professional responsibility, professional learning, and professional designations. Teachers became the leaders that they desperately needed to address persistent challenges of equity and access with regard to technology, Internet, and learning opportunities, as well as to attend to students' physical, mental, and social–emotional well-being. They navigated social distancing to assist families in managing the stress and anxiety of students struggling to understand the rapidly changing circumstances of their daily lives. They “adopted” high school seniors whose hopes for proms, senior trips, and graduation ceremonies had been dashed. They led and served with a commitment to compassion.

Teachers recognized that the resiliency they’d cultivated during these unprecedented times would not return them to a “normal” they’d known, but it would prepare them for a newly constructed reality that demanded that educational equity and access be afforded to all students regardless of their status or station in society.

The pandemic has created many uncertainties and challenges. This may be our new “normal” for a while. As a new teacher, your commitment to working with students and families to meet their needs has never been more important. Be willing to reach out for support. Collaborate with colleagues. Look for ways to problem solve to address inequities and embrace opportunities to cultivate resiliency.

Remote Learning: Dismantle the World and Re-Create It

Clint Whitten

Seventh Grade English Teacher/Blacksburg Middle School

Montgomery County Public Schools, VA

Twitter: @TeacherWhitten

Remote teaching paired with a pandemic allows us to change the systemic problems in education. As Shirley Chisholm writes, “You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.” Advice is ever-changing. However, the wisdom in listening to what you and your students need is never changing.

This is our chance to refresh what the root of education means, and to me, that is discovery. What can we discover about the world, ourselves, and about relationships during this new era of remote learning? Allow yourself to create an online curriculum with students' voices being the heart. What policies will you create together? We have the opportunity to think about what the system of education looks like if we redefine it.

During Emergency Remote Teaching, policies and structures change constantly. It is our job to be flexible, understanding, and vulnerable. Remember that human beings are behind both sides of remote learning. My Google classroom is now a place for television show suggestions, daily quotes, tips on how to build planes, and so on…all driven by students. I host weekly Zoom meetings because students need to see their teacher. I respond to student emails as soon as possible. We have to accept vulnerability and relationships now more than ever in education.

Remote learning is exhausting. Rely on your colleagues and share resources. I have simple goals for my students: Read and write about whatever they can access. Simple goals allow clear learning objectives. Remote learning exposes even greater equity issues. This type of learning disproportionally affects low-income families, particularly Black and Brown students. Therefore, you must provide tools specifically for those families. All students do not have the Internet, caregivers helping them work, or basic human needs. A paper packet will not help these students learn. Give them a book, a project (including the materials), or an independent study. Trust that you know your students.

This is not an academic crisis. This is a world health pandemic. Understand you and your students are human, and the concept of any remote learning must be student driven. Create a world wherein students are not given tests but are given chances to genuinely understand and explore the world.

But First … Relationships

Shannon Rice

Special Education Teacher

Jefferson Central School District, Jefferson, NY

Twitter: @SRice498

When I began my journey into teaching, I never imagined that I would be trading YouTube videos of goats wearing pajamas with students to make them laugh. Teaching remotely due to a global pandemic has changed everything. I have decided to focus on what is most important: Relationships with my students.

As I made the shift to emergency learning, questions about standards, curriculum, and workload mounted. The way I prioritized was to focus on my students first. I have had to find new ways to communicate with my students and families on a daily basis. Emailing, phone calls, posting to online platforms, and sending greeting cards through the mail have all become regular practice. The social and emotional health of students is my priority. Teachers should identify what their priorities are, and focus on those elements first.

I check with every student regularly to see how they are doing. Do they need anything? How are they spending their time? Are they getting fresh air? What about managing emotions? These questions are much more important than reducing fractions, balancing chemical equations, or spelling words with the “-tch” pattern. I trade opinions about movies and TV shows. I ask about pets, siblings, and hobbies. Sometimes I just listen. I make sure my students know that I am still here for them, and that I care. Teachers need to ask questions, listen, and be “real” with their students.

My students know I’m not upset if they don’t complete an assignment. I’m not mad that they email me at 10:00 pm instead of 10:00 am. I’m just happy they are communicating with me. Fostering relationships with students will pay greater dividends than any instructional technology or remote learning tool in our arsenal. These relationships will allow me to help my students emerge from this extraordinary experience and continue to grow as amazing young people. I’m putting relationships first.

A Shift in Our Perspective

Julie Padilla

Social Studies Teacher and Literacy Specialist

John V. Lindsay Wildcat Academy Charter School, Bronx, NY

www.linkedin.com/in/padilla-j-julie

While COVID-19 has caused us to experience a world of difference in our personal lives, we are also grappling with a shift in our own professional approaches. As educators, we are used to helping our students in person, giving them that smile that reassures them, and just being there for them. We need to take these same skills and translate them into support that can be felt through remote learning.

Teachers, we need to do away with whatever assumptions we have. Some of our students are coming from diverse backgrounds. The way our students are encountering the realities of this pandemic may be entirely different from what we know as individuals. We need to be continuously conscious of this. We also need to be realistic about our students and the goals we set for them. With this information, we can do our very best to provide that positive reinforcement they need. Letting our students know it is okay if they are having trouble, to continue to ask questions and make mistakes is essential. What we can do as their support system is what comes naturally to us as educators. We need to applaud our students' successes. We need to continue to acknowledge students for their growth. We need to celebrate our students and allow them to enjoy their time learning. Most importantly, at the end of the day we need to remember they are kids trying to navigate this world the best they can.

While these are tasks we are used to doing in the classroom, it can easily become something we forget while teaching remotely. Keeping these ideas at the forefront in our daily approach is vital and allows for remote learning to occur successfully.

Less Is More

Jennifer Jaros, NBCT

EL Teache...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Teaching During a Pandemic
• 2 Classroom Setup and Management
• 3 Culturally Responsive Teaching
• 4 Curriculum and Instruction
• 5 Differentiation
• 6 English Learners
• 7 Professionalism/School Culture
• 8 Navigating Teacher Evaluation
• 9 Relationship Building/Communication
• 10 Student Assessment and Data Literacy
• 11 Work–Life Balance
• Meet the Authors
• Back Cover