Ms. M's Tales of a Teacher: My Personal Teacher Blog

Observations and feedback... enough said right? I'm sure as a fellow educator you're half tempted to scroll by this post, cringing at the mere mentioning of it. Today I want us to reframe our thinking of observations and feedback based on what I learned from a recent webinar.  We know as educators that providing our students with feedback on an essay will help them to see where they made an error, and more importantly,  grow as learners. One of the sentences that stood to me in this recent webinar was "the same goes for adults!" Sure we are given feedback on our observation forms. We are used to this for sure, however, when is the last time you received feedback from a peer who is on your grade-level team. Or the the fourth grade teacher who provides feedback to a teacher on the first grade team. There are many possibilities when it comes to peer observations and feedback.  The point is to not make teachers feel nervous that yet another person has come in to observe,

 This weekend I had the honor to participate in my CTOY retreat, and I was able to finally meet more of my cohorts in person! The weekend was filled with laughter, plenty of photos, learning opportunities, and connections. This is nothing short of teacher magic for me!  One topic we focused on for our workshop was the idea of teacher leadership. We discussed what it means and how to work on developing our own leadership skills (more in another post!) Those who know me this warmed my teaching heart because teacher leadership is one of my three loves of my teaching life (along with literacy and special ed.)  For me, what made the retreat so special was the connections that I made with my cohorts (and other county teachers.) It was an opportunity for me to reflect on the importance of surrounding myself with others who are like minded and passionate about teaching like I am. When the ideas are flowing, we are creating, and the support emanates from every corner of the room, I know I am ex

 This weekend I've spent some time catching up on some reading that I had to put to the side at the start of this school year. For me, changing grade levels and classrooms is nothing short of a challenge, and I know most of my energy is spent the first year in a new grade level organizing, fine-tuning, and developing new curriculum/lesson materials for my students. One of the first things that I sacrifice on my "to do" list is reading and even attending webinars or workshops that I otherwise might not have missed, or insisted I spent the ten extra minutes reading. At first, this might seem logical and necessary, and part of me still knows that it is however, what am I really sacrificing if I don't spend time reading and attending the webinars or workshops I want?  I've always stood my my belief that teaching is lifelong learning. In order to do that, educators have to find what areas of education "stick" with them the most, and then spend the time and e

 Now that we've been in school for a few weeks, I've been thinking about some of my classroom routines, and perhaps some of you are too! I took time and consideration to each routine for the classroom, and conferred with my co-teacher about them so we were on the same page. As Harry Wong suggests, establishing routines is critical in the beginning of the school year so students feel successful and can carry out the routines with ease for the rest of the year. Not to mention it establishes the climate of the classroom and sets the tone for the rest of the year what the expectations are.  There are times you'll find as a teacher that no matter how hard you try, your routine is not working. Don't get me wrong, I am not one to give up right away but I've even had times when I had to reconsider a routine. In fact, this just happened to me this past month. I realized that my students needed a different system to use the bathroom throughout the day to maximize their class