Prepare to Teach Well: Work Ahead

As a teacher who taught for a long time while managing a home with young children, I learned to value preparation. There's no way that we can teach well during the school year without using some time during the summer months to prepare for the school year expectations, especially those expectations that fall outside of the daily planning, teaching, and response related to the students we teach.

With that in mind, I advise the following summer work.

1. Create a digital portfolio that includes your main paperwork, goals, and organization.
2. Reflect on the evaluation standards that pertain to your work.
3. Complete any system-wide paperwork or online trainings if that work is published prior to the school year. 
4. Review and organize school year scope and sequences, and catch up on learning that you need in order to teach your students well. 

Teaching well requires substantial effort on our own time. To deny or avoid that expectation is to put yourself in a challenging situation once the school year starts. On the other hand, you can't spend the whole summer working so you have to strike that right balance between family, fun, and professional work. Let me know if you have thoughts or ideas related to this post. As educators we need to support and encourage one another in order to do our work well. 

Examples

ePortfolio

Standards Reflection

MA Professional Development Plan Google Template