Things I will do as a teacher

(My list of Things I will NOT do as a teacher can be found here. This is a continuation from that post.)

-Speak slowly and clearly and audibly.

-Plan, plan, plan. And then plan some more.

-Give due dates and exam dates out on the first day of school and stick to them.

-Give extra credit to students who miss assignments or are doing poorly.

-Execute plans.

-Catch attention in interesting manner at start of each class session.

-Provide clearly what will be on tests and how they will be conducted.

-Give a preliminary test for no credit on the first day of class to gauge where the class is.

-Incorporate history/current events/applications/unsolved problems/puzzles/other disciplines into material and connect the dots.

-Always write everything down clearly and concisely when lecturing.

-Provide group work.

-Increase engaged time; decrease time wasters.

-Count improvement as part of grade.

-Hand back corrected work with at most a week turn over.

-Provide grade updates weekly.

-Homework daily, even during holidays.

-Weekly quizzes on lectures and other in-class learning.

-Chapter tests at end of chapter.

-Midterm and final exams in middle and end of term respectively.

-Plan more than enough for any one session with an estimate at where will probably end.

-Leave the classroom for outdoors/outside/different environment learning experiences.

-Ask professionals/parents to come in and talk about their jobs/career/school career/life experience to students.

-Inspire, motivate, have fun, challenge, relax.

-Lead students to understand more about themselves as well as the world.

-Give an ending test to gauge how much the students have learned, find out their teachers for next year and give these teachers their corrected test.

-Encourage students to take summer school at junior college.

-Recommend A students to honors/AP/advanced courses.

-Write recommendation letters, whether asked or not, and hand out to students at end of term.

-Be available for office hours during times convenient for students. Also be available online, by email, and by phone (office).

-Tell and prove to students that success does not come easy – need hard work, dedication, creativity, open-mindedness.

-Befriend colleagues, meet with them outside of school setting, talk to them often.

I wrote this list four years ago. The only item that I would drastically change now is the one about being available online, by email, and by phone 24/7. I don't think I will do that anymore. I'm not a very effective teacher if I don't have sufficient space.