One of the biggest learnings I had as a teacher is that EVERYTHING needs to be taught, modeled, and explicitly shared with students. As a new teacher I expected students knew how to enter the classroom, complete classwork during work time, and work with others.
It turns out each of those and so much more need to be explicitly modeled and taught. I learned to never assume that students knew how to do what I expected of them. I came to find it equally important that I teach student HOW to learn as much as WHAT to learn.
It’s a long process to figure out what works for you and your students. In the effort of thinking about how to share some of these practices and earlier reflections, I recently returned to some of my template slides I used to ensure students knew exactly what I was expecting of them. Starting class, working in groups, even turning in homework – I had a go-to template slide for all of them, so that by the end of the year students would see the slide and know exactly what to do and what to expect. I encourage anyone to browse, copy, or edit any they would find helpful.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1kqGAWYxoqLTcAYE6HQBnVsQ4AtwUTMN_SaNt3ghMqnA/edit?usp=sharing