Teacher's Daily Duties

Image by Rosy / Bad Homburg / Germany from Pixabay

Some people think that teaching is the easiest job ever. You have summer days off, federal holidays off, sick days, personal days etc. etc. However, they never know teaching is not limited to working hours and many teachers spent their entire summer on professional developments, lesson planing or taking courses. I just wanted to write down my own duties throughout the week just to let you know how sophisticated teaching can be:

Daily Duties / Routine:

• Swipe your time card
• Pick up your attendance book
• Turn on your computer and print out practice/test for students
• Print out weekly grade book for the week
• Print out extra copies of slides for students who need copies, absent, late or suspended
• Provide additional work for students suspended in school
• Go to the copy machine to pick up your copies
• Turn off your cell phone, put it in your drawer
• Prepare some pencils/pens for unprepared students
• Make sure you have enough copies of hall passes
• Check whether the projector is working
• Fill your water/coffee bottle before classes begin
• Grade quizzes, tests, worksheets and enter them to the electronic grading system
• Grade homework and classwork
• Check the students suspended in school, provide them classwork, explain the work for them
• Fill out your sick day/personal leave paperwork or any other documentation
• Use the restroom during your break time so that you don't have to leave during class
• Eat to stay energetic, keep snacks handy
• Go to cafeteria to get your lunch
• Fill your water bottle two more times during the day
• Take attendance on the attendance book/ on electronic grade book
• Enter incidents/referrals/discipline issues to the system
• Respond to e-mails from staff and administrators
• Run an after school club
• Provide tutoring for students need help
• Tell students their grades if they ask
• Provide students their missing work
• Attend Grade Level/ Department/Staff meetings/ Professional developments
• Make copies for the following day
• Return to your wife's call, tell her when you are leaving
• Fill out the teacher input form for students with disabilities
• You have to call some parents because you gave their kids referrals today
•  Write attendance letters to the parents
•  Arrange your field trip/college visit/other events you are responsible.

 Weekends:  Teacher's don't work on Saturdays, do they?

• Saturday School: Tutoring for all students
• You spent at least half the day with the students, other half making copies
• If you don't want to be frustrated on Monday mornings, prepare on Saturday.
• Sunday: At home, lesson planning all day. All plans need to bu submitted before Monday morning.
• Prepare slides, make changes on them, save them on your computer, e-mail them to self just in case

These are things I can't remember right now, I know it depends on school, district and the students. Think again...

Syllabus Quiz

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

Many teachers go over their syllabus the first day and start teaching the day after. I usually spend four or five days just to go over my syllabus, classroom rules and expectations. It's also important to demonstrate those routines and procedures. To see whether they understood the expectations or not, I also assess them at the end of the week about the classroom procedures. 

A syllabus quiz can be an open book quiz where students find and write down the answers easily. Everybody gets a 100 as longs as they know how to read and write. This is not only helpful for covering your first week of school but also gives you an idea of how long it takes students to complete such a task. This will also allow you to establish a weekly assessment routine. 

Daily Quiz

Image by 472301 from Pixabay

In Holt Power Presentations, a typical lesson ends with a lesson quiz. In the past, I didn't really pay attention to those for several reasons but this year I changed my mind. After teaching a lesson, I wanted to check if they really understood what they have just learned and I can use that input data for the following class. This year I have two periods of math every day with the same group of students. This is my daily routine for those two periods:

First period:
Bellwork
Instruction
Guided Practice
Lesson Quiz
Independent Practice
Homework

Second period:
Lesson Quiz (going over it)
Re-teach (if necessary) 
Independent Practice

Lesson Quiz is a great tool that gives me instant feedback to see whether students have understood the concept or not. A Lesson Quiz has five questions: One easy, two normal, one difficult, and one more problem solving. While giving a lesson quiz, I also have such a procedure:

I pass out the quiz paper
Students show all their work and circle their final answers
Since it's open ended, they need to be graded
If I can quickly grade them I would show the students what they received on the quiz
In the next class, we go over the same problems if they missed any of the questions.

Daily Quiz is a major component of my assessment policy and students really try hard since it's quick, short and gives them instant feedback. I can also recommend using clickers for such quick grading where you don't have to grade all the papers on your own. However, I like seeing the students' work and I always tell them they can still receive credit even though their final answer is not accurate. 

Starting a New Marking Period Strong

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I always make a fresh start every marking period by making some changes, announcing new things and adjusting my grading policy. It's also a great opportunity to get better in classroom management by improving your daily routines and make them work better. For this new parking period, I wanted to go over a couple of things with my students so that they will remember the classroom rules, expectations and many other things. I usually do that on the first day of the marking period and it takes about a regular class time. 

Some teachers think that they can't afford to lose this much instructional time, but I think the opposite. Think about the benefits of "not losing instructional time" later in the year. If students ask questions, it turns into a discussion which is good. I also prepare a handout which requires them to take notes during the presentation and evaluate this as a classwork grade. You may find the following websites helpful to set up your classroom rules and expectations:

6 Must teach classroom procedures for the first days of school

IRIS Center Establishing Classroom Norms & Expectations

31 Must-Teach Classroom Procedures and Routines

Math-Drills.com

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

If you haven't come across with this website yet, hurry up! Math Drills is providing thousands of ready to print worksheets for students who need more practice with their foundational skils. I have downloaded so many of their worksheets until now and I have used them many times in my classroom. Here is a short description of the website:

 

Welcome to Math-Drills.com where we have over 13,000 free math worksheets with answer keys. At Math-Drills.com, we strive to provide high-quality printable math worksheets for teachers, parents, home schoolers and other educators. Please choose a category from our navigation menu above or scroll down for more information.

Using a SmartBoard

Interactive Boards are very common in today's classrooms and a lot of teachers are using them. I have used multiple smartboards during my teaching career, and they have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages:

• You can create your own lessons with the software.
• You can find thousands of lesson plans on their website.
• You can involve students in your teaching by allowing them to touch the screen.
• You can use it with other files/documents where you can write on them.
• You can save your work to use in another class.

Disadvantages:

• You have to be in front of the class all the time which takes the power from you. 
• You might have technical difficulties any time, so you need to come up with a backup plan.
• Some smart boards do not allow you to write with more than one marker at a time.
• Some smart boards need to be mounted on the wall and hard to remove somewhere else.

If you are more interested in using an interactive board, here is a good website for beginners:
Benefits of Smart Boards

Here I have listed the most popular interactive board companies:

SMART Technologies | The Award-Winning Leader in Edtech Learning Tools and Software

Promethean | Interactive Displays & Software for Education (prometheanworld.com)

Innovative Technology in the Classroom | Boxlight

First in Math

firstinmath.com

First in Math is an online math program by Suntex Inc. The program is designed around 24 game which has been very popular across the nation. I have used this program with my middle school students, and they really liked it. It can also be used with elementary grades. The program is very helpful for foundations such as multiplication and division. Students love it since the program has its own incentives and allows them to compete schoolwide or nationwide with their peers.

MathCounts

MathCounts is a nation wide math competition which has regional, state and national chapters. The competition is open for middle school students in grades 6 through 8. You may find more information on their website: http://mathcounts.org/

Flipped Classrooms

Image by WOKANDAPIX from Pixabay

I think this concept has begun circulating around since Khan Academy has launched. In this model, the students study the new concepts at home by watching videos and come to school with some prior knowledge. The teachers spends very few amount of time for instruction and allocate more time for practice at school. Class time can be used for further explanations and more practice. 

Some research say 85 % of the teachers who flipped their classrooms have seen increase in their test scores. Personally, I believe that the students need to spend more time on practice rather than direct instruction. In the past, a flipped classroom model may not have worked if the students did not have a computer or internet connection at home. However, there are mobile apps for flipped classrooms where students can actually watch videos anywhere.

For more information, you may visit the following websites:

Flipped Classroom - Center for Teaching & Learning

 

Flip Your Classroom | Center for Teaching & Learning

The Flipped Classroom

Flipping the Classroom | Center for Teaching Innovation