Tag: organization

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Helping Students Manage Stress

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Two things are certain in life: death and taxes.” And while that’s true, I would add a third certainty: stress. Everyone will, at one point or another, experience stress in their lives. The level of severity might differ, but the existence of stressors is a given. 

I wish I could say that stress only happens once you’re an adult, but that’s just not the case. Kids and teens are experiencing stress early on. As adults, we have had more time to figure out how to handle the various kinds of stresses that come into our lives. But for teens and kids, managing stress can be overwhelming when they don’t have knowledge of or access to proper stress management techniques. Teachers have a unique opportunity to be able to incorporate those kinds of skills and techniques into their curriculum, thus providing the rising generation with the tools they will need to manage the stress they encounter. 

You may have a few techniques that you know work, but there are always more to learn and try. Below are some stress management techniques you might consider teaching your students. 

  • Teach students to organize and prioritize their time. Show them how to use a planner or digital task tracker. When you feel more organized, tasks feel easier to take on.
  • Help students to learn and practice various breathing techniques for high stress moments.
  • Practice mindfulness as a class, then teach them to practice it individually.
  • Belly breathing– this helps to redirect their focus and calm their nervous systems.
  • Physical activity– movement does amazing things for the brain, and is a great way to release emotional energy.
  • Journaling- doing a brain dump is a great way for kids to get everything out that is stressing them so they feel like they can move forward.
  • Art- creating art is a great stress reliever! It’s a really good creative outlet that can help students refocus.
  • Encourage students to get a good night’s sleep. Solid sleep has amazing benefits in so many areas. 
  • Teach students to use the 5-4-3-2-1 method: identify 5 things they can see, 4 things they can touch, 3 things they can hear, 2 things they can smell, and 1 thing they can taste. You can practice this together as a class and have students write their answers down, then as they get comfortable with the process, they can do it on their own.
  • Teach your class how to do progressive muscle relaxation as a way to calm down in stressful situations.
  • Do regular brain breaks during class time as a way to break up the time, get students moving, and to give their minds a break from the rigors of learning.

Kids of all ages can benefit from these stress management techniques. Providing kids with proper tools can help them tremendously, and can help them turn to healthy ways to manage stress rather than unhealthy ways.

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Let’s Talk Time Management: My Tips To You

Over the years my role has changed. I went from a high school student to a college student, to a teacher, to a parent. As I transitioned to each new phase in my life, I found that I struggled with learning time management again. This is something I have always prided myself on being exceptional at, and to struggle with it was tough. I eventually compiled a list of tips on managing time to help myself during these transitions, and now I want to share them with you. 

  1. Time management is fluid. We are constantly moving from one phase of our lives to the next, so we cannot expect what we were using during college to work as a mom. Embrace the change.
  2. It looks different for every person. Just like it changes with different phases of life, it also changes from person to person. You cannot manage your time the same way someone else does and expect it to work. You are you, they are them.
  3. It takes a plan. It’s not something you necessarily need to write down every step unless that’s your style. But it is something that takes conscious awareness and practice.
  4. Dedication and effort are crucial. It’s easy to make a plan, but to follow through and stick to your plan will be the deciding factor of success.

Very few people have one or two parts of their lives they need to manage. The majority of us are juggling work, school, families, social lives, religion, and more. It can be a hard balancing act, but here are the tools that have helped me. 

  1. Set a day to plan. Every Sunday afternoon I sit down with my husband, pull out our calendars, and discuss what our week will look like, who needs to be where, and how we will work together to accomplish it. This is not a big planning meeting for us, it’s usually casually done sitting on the couch while a TV show plays. The weeks this doesn’t happen, it usually turns to madness.
  2. Prioritize your week. I walk through everything I need to do for the week and make a decision on the importance level. Either I absolutely have to be there, it’s flexible when it happens, or it’s not a need. The work commitment I made for midweek? That’s an absolute. My son’s doctor’s appointment in the afternoon? It can possibly be flexible if needed, those can be rescheduled. Going to the waterpark with friends on Friday? Not a need, but definitely a want.
    When I take the time to categorize these events, it helps me in those moments of feeling overwhelmed with my load for the week. As my Friday fills up with other work commitments or obligations to my church I made last minute and I start to wonder how to make it all work, I remember that going to the waterpark is not an absolute, it can and will be dropped if needed. That leads me to my next point.
  3. It’s okay to say no. If adding more to your plate is causing problems or making it harder to keep those non-negotiable commitments, start by cutting out the events in your life that are not needed.
  4. Delegation is your best friend. No, I did not say “making everyone else take care of your problems” is your best friend. But giving others opportunities to help themselves and you can have a high payoff. For example, while I was teaching first grade, I offered to stay after school to help a student read. With everything on my plate, did I have time to help this student? Absolutely not. But did I anyway? Absolutely.
    A few weeks in, my principal caught word of what I was doing, and while he admired it, he helped me find an alternative solution. He told me there was a free after school club that the student could attend where someone could sit with him every day, one-on-one to read. I passed the torch to the after school club and it was so freeing to know that the student was still being helped, and I had an extra half hour every day. Delegation at its finest.
  5. Be organized. Organization is placing something in structure or giving it order. This means for some people, like me, a neat planner with straight lines and color-coded highlights for each event is “organized”. For others, that may mean a messy notebook with everything written sporadically throughout. Find your definition of order and go with it. Trying to manage your life the same way as someone else will not make you organized, it will make them organized.

For me, these are tried and true tips that have guided me through every different stage of life. I’ve been prioritizing events for years now, they have just changed from college classes and social events with friends on the weekends, to my kid’s activities and park play dates with neighbors.

My last tip, which I find the most important to remember, is that you can start today. If you need better time management in your life, there is no need to wait for a new year, just start with a new day! Tomorrow, prioritize your events. The following day, delegate a few to-dos. On any given day of the week, sit down and plan out the next 5-7 days. Don’t wait for some big moment to organize your life, it can happen any time!

What methods do you use for time management? How has it changed over time for you?                

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Reorganized Pages for Easier Navigation!

2 years ago, I came up with a blog posting topic schedule that consisted of 3 main categories of inquiry, TeacherMom, and Learning through Reflecting posts.

I wrote:

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about making this kind of commitment. I know there will be days or even weeks where it just doesn’t happen. But since I want to continue to model important learner qualities to my students (current small ones and future bigger ones), I refuse to let fear of failure keep me from taking a chance that might help me grow and improve.”

I am so glad I took that chance–it has been an incredible experience for me to push myself to curate resources, notice connections, and reflect as a professional. I feel certain that if I did not set up these goals for myself, my personal professional learning would fall by the wayside in these years while I’m away from the classroom.

Now, as these posts have accumulated, I realize it’s getting a little cumbersome for readers (or even myself) to revisit older posts. So I’m pleased to announce that the pages for each of the 3 categories have been reorganized, with posts grouped by sub-concepts on each page. I would love feedback–what is easier about these pages? What would make navigation even simpler?

Inquiry Posts

#TeacherMom Posts

Learning through Reflecting Posts

Thank you so much to all those who have encouraged me over these years of blogging!

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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The Evolution of Innovation (2 Videos)

This week’s provocation centers around getting students to reflect on change and innovation.

Resource #1: “The Evolution of the Desk” from BestReviews (see original here)

Resource #2: Did You Know 3.0 by VideoShredHead

Provocation Questions:

  • What do you think the desk in the first video will look like in 5 more years? 50 more years? (See one educator’s predictions of 21 things that will be obsolete by 2020)
  • How does society change as people’s resources change?
  • How do people’s individual lives change as their resources change?
  • Why are we sometimes reluctant to accept change? What are the consequences (positive? negative?) of accepting change quickly/slowly?
  • How does #edtech impact learning?
  • How has preparation for the future changed since our parents/grandparents were growing up? How do we prepare for such an unknown future now?

featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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What If? On Coauthoring Learning Reports

I feel a pang of annoyance. Parent follow-up every day? I wonder if I should feel insulted by a lack of trust. And doesn’t that parent know I have 25 other students to monitor? And what if all of their parents requested the same level of communication?

Sadly, such was my attitude when I first started teaching whenever a parent asked for more frequent communication on their child.

Fortunately, over time, I started to recognize just how important it is for parents to have a better window into their children’s learning–not just because of the fact that they have entrusted them to my care for 7 hours a day, but also because I came to grasp just how really terrible grades are at conveying meaningful learning.

Student-led conferences helped me take one of the first leaps forward in creating that window. The student ownership, the authentic conversations, and the overall sense of meaning facilitated unprecedented parent/student/teacher communication. (the link above will take you to that process, along with a lot of pdf resources)!

Student blogging came next in furthering the communication cause. I knew I wanted my students to be able to showcase their learning journeys in ways their parents could more easily access. The students loved commenting on one another’s blog posts, but the real joy came as parents started leaving responses, too–words of encouragement, support, and love.

Now that I’m away from my classroom, I have time to reflect on how I can further build the school/home window.  Michael Bond-Clegg’s recent post, “Are We Prioritizing the Tradition of a Report Card Over Student Learning?” really got me pondering this when he writes:

timely-learning-reports

Here are just a few of my what ifs for now. I would love to hear your feedback, especially if it’s something you’ve tried/dreamed about as well!

  • What if teachers and students regularly coauthored learning reports (do you think something like this would work–I was thinking that notes could be added in each relevant category as learning developments worth noting arise, not as a chart to be completely filled each week)?
  • What if teachers openly discussed our anecdotal notes with each student and asked for their feedback?
  • What if parents were able to write and respond to notes with what they are seeing at home with regards to specific learning goals?
  • What if students were able to write and respond to notes with what they are experiencing with regards to specific learning goals?
  • What if we completely eliminated surprise “grades” and moments like those illustrated in the meme below?

Meme Binge
Meme Binge

featured image:

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3 Ways to Organize & Maximize diyPD Time

When I finish reading articles that illustrate the sad statistics on absurdly high teacher workloads and burn-out rates, it makes me pause. I wonder whether all my reflections and recommendations about developing PLN‘s and diyPD are just a mirage for teachers trapped in such circumstances.

And perhaps they are. Which is why it is important to continue to spread awareness of such issues and to challenge policymakers to address them. But meanwhile, I find it equally important to share our strategies with other teachers that serve us even amid less-than-ideal circumstances.

On that note, here are 3 resources to better organize and maximize time for personal diyPD learning. I have found them to be enormously beneficial to keep me organized, and it’s especially my hope that they will help lessen the load for those teachers seeking to find scraps of time for personal professional learning!

RSS feed reader. Are all of your email subscriptions bogging down your email box? Try switching to an RSS feed reader. Chrome has some simple and free extensions that I’d recommend, like “RSS Feed Reader” if you want a simple menu bar icon that will give a drop-down menu of new posts; or “Feedly” if you want a more news-oriented layout that you can also sync to a phone app). You can then organize your content into folders to better select what/when you want to peruse specific topics. Remember that you can also subscribe to individual Youtube or Vimeo channels! 

Inbox. Speaking of email boxes, Inbox by Gmail is a fantastic way to lasso out-of-control email. Not only can it sort incoming emails into neat folders, but it’s an excellent task-managing, sanity-saving tool. See more reasons to give it a try: “Why Google Inbox Is an Organized Teacher’s Best Friend.”

OneTab. Seeking respite from the dozens of tabs I perpetually left open on our computer, my husband introduced me to this beautiful little Chrome extension. With one click, all those tabs collapse into an easy-to-organize list in a single tab. I love it because I can more easily see all the pages/titles I’d opened with less mess. And my husband loves it because it saves our computer speed. Win-win.

What are some of your favorite time-saving management tools when it comes to media use? Please share!

Featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto

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Why Google Inbox Is an Organized Teacher’s Best Friend

When it comes to lassoing the thousand demands on our attention, we all have different strategies. A daily Post-it note on your desk, a detailed planner–maybe even alerts on your phone. But one to rule them all might just be the new Google Inbox. If you have a Gmail account, and if you are a teacher, you’ll want to upgrade the desktop version and replace the app on mobile devices with Inbox today. Here’s why:

  • You can snooze emails for later. I don’t know about you, but when I receive 11 high-priority emails simultaneously, but only have time to address 3, it translates to instant background worry that the other 8 will slip through the cracks. This is one of many reasons I love the snooze feature. If you know you’ll have time to email Johnny’s dad back later that evening, or maybe tomorrow morning, you can easily dismiss it until that time. Not sure when you’ll have time to revisit an idea introduced in an email (like an annual conference or newsletter on an interesting gadget), but know you don’t want to forget it forever? Just snooze until “Someday.”
  • You can create Reminders. Watch your email inbox become a neat, one-stop for all school-related to-do’s. When you hover over the bottom right circle, you can either compose an email or add a reminder for yourself that gets added into your inbox. You can also schedule these to display at specific dates/times or preset times (ie, “This weekend”). No more leaving to fate (or sticky notes) your intention to follow-up with Susie on her book choice next Monday, or to share that new resource with your grade level team. The mobile app is just as adept at this.
  • It will conveniently group your emails. Instead of every. single. email. cluttering up your screen in a long list, you can utilize Inbox’s bundling feature. For instance, instead of rows and rows of emails from Scholastic, Youtube, and DonorsChoose interspersed among more pressing emails, you can set them to show up in one Updates bundle line that expands when you click on it. Other bundles include Purchases, Finance, Promos, Trips, and Saved–and you can even make your own.
  • You can clean out your box quickly. The Done button is another favorite feature. Instead of clicking on an email and then trying to decide if I want to archive it, trash it, or send it to a group, I can just click one beautiful checkmark that appears next to the email when I hover on it.  This feature becomes even more beautiful when it comes to bundles–I can click to expand all those Updates emails, quickly glance down the list to check whether anything needs my attention, and then click Done to sweep the entire bundle from my box.
  • The pinning feature adds even more flexibility. If a more important email shows up in a bundle that you’d otherwise like to sweep out, you can just pin it and it will move to your main inbox. You can also toggle the view so you see only pinned vs. unpinned items at a time.

And there are hints of more time-saving features to be added all the time. As much as we all dislike change, Inbox is definitely a winner. Make time this summer to tinker with it for a more organized and efficient next school year!