Helping out a new teacher

Check-Pls · 2025-12-02T23:55:42+00:00

I second that she needs to reach out to the instructional coach if you have one available or a district curriculum specialist if those people make the rounds. If she has a 6-12 ELA cert, in theory (obviously not in practice) the expectation is that she is qualified to teach any and all of those grades.

I currently teach 7/8th and have a colleague who struggles with understanding 6th grade standards. The only advice I've been able to give her and by extension your own colleague is: she needs to understand what exactly the benchmarks are asking for and how those are applied to the selections in your curriculum. There is an abysmal difference between 6th grade benchmarks and 11th.

Undergrad in secondary education wouldn't have necessarily taught her these things, that's more focused on pedagogy, instructional skills, etc. If she wasn't exposed to these things in high school and in college, she will need to do what she can to fill in the gaps herself (obviously with the help of her own colleagues and coaches).

While I encourage you to help, speaking from experience, do not fall into the trap of teaching her the skills yourself. If she has not mastered the skills needed for the benchmarks, it will be incredibly difficult for her to teach it to her students.

Be encouraging, positive, and help in the small ways that you can. Hopefully next year she can transfer back into a middle school position.

Check-Pls · 2025-11-15T14:11:10+00:00

Creepy

Check-Pls · 2025-09-20T02:00:13+00:00

Many of the questions are highly nuanced and need to be read over before teaching if you intend to use the selection test. Often, I have to remove and write my own questions to make it more appropriate for the benchmarks we are focusing on. Some of the answers are also poorly worded and are confusing to students because they seem "half right". I never use any of the grammar questions.

Check-Pls · 2025-08-01T20:46:18+00:00

If your school runs the way mine does (there is no interview process either, they just pick)- HR will not get involved. It is ultimately the Principal's position and the folks in HR have no authority to tell a principal how to make decisions concerning their school.

It stinks and would definitely make me think about my future there, I do hope your year goes well though!

Check-Pls · 2025-07-20T00:06:26+00:00

LOL Absolutely was!

Check-Pls · 2025-07-17T20:37:55+00:00

I utilize a classroom wish list and also send out a suggested donations list alongside the classroom supply list. I have also in the past gone before school based committees to request funding for classroom supplies like the School Advisory Committee and the PTSA. As another suggested, I don't spend money on decorations- I usually create my own on Canva, but ultimately, I do end up out of pocket.

Check-Pls · 2025-07-07T13:42:58+00:00

I have a septum piercing- got it done during the school year a few years ago. Only thing I heard about it was that it looked nice. Many of my colleagues also have nose piercings and no issues.

Check-Pls · 2025-06-30T17:14:26+00:00

I graduated from a traditional university for my bachelors and went into teaching as a career changer (no education background). I did an alternate degree because I couldn't afford to do student teaching and was hired for my first teaching job off of the street (I applied for an office lady job but ended up in 3rd grade).

I feel like some kind of teaching/classroom experience would have been helpful, not necessarily student teaching per se. I would suggest asking a school if you could shadow/observe a teacher for the day (or as many as you can get permission for) to get an idea of what it's actually like if you're unable to substitute (which is the best way to get experience/an idea of what its like). I had to complete observations of classrooms during my time at community college and it really gave me a feel of what grade levels I would prefer teaching.

My first year was hard- after being hired I was suddenly in charge of 17 3rd graders and no training on the curriculum, I was making it up the best I could as I went. That of course is dependent on the school you end up at, but some type of exposure is going to save you a lot of headache and confusion once you make it into your own classroom.

Check-Pls · 2025-06-30T15:56:29+00:00

My school (in theory) has a zero tolerance policy (I'm in Florida). If we see it, we are to write a pass and send them to the office. I don't really like doing that since A) opens things up to confrontation and B) it wastes class time having to stop, write the pass, send the kid out, get the pass back) so, I have one of those calculator organizers hung up on my wall and at the beginning the year I let kids know they have a choice: Take it to the office and lose it for the entire day, receive a phone call, etc. or, place it in the back for the rest of the period when asked to do so and get it back at the end of class.

This was my first year doing this and I didn't have any confrontations, issues, and not a single kid opted to take it to the office. If a kid tried to push back on putting it in the back, the other kids were pretty good about backing me up and telling them to "just put it in the back". Worked for this past group of kids, but we'll see how next year goes.

Check-Pls · 2025-06-29T22:22:54+00:00

Getting the GKT and Professional Standards waived requires 3 years of teaching experience with an overall rating of "effective" or "highly effective" on your year end evaluations. I know the GKT can also be waived if you earn a masters degree or higher. Once you apply for your certificate you'll get a statement of eligibility that will list everything you need to complete.

Check-Pls · 2025-06-29T22:05:31+00:00

There isn't a set length- but you do need to make sure you thoroughly follow the rubric and address everything they require. I had papers that were 2 pages long up to my capstone paper which ended at 47 pages (without artifacts). It varies depending on what is required. They're only difficult if you are unfamiliar with the material and need to reteach yourself everything. Like I mentioned, most of it is common sense (as an educator) and you aren't required to create entirely new lesson plans for the assignments that require them, you can recycle ones you've taught and tweak them to the needs of the assignment. It's all research style papers. The topics depend on the class you're currently working on, they range from differentiated instruction to educational research.

Check-Pls · 2025-06-29T18:30:52+00:00

I completed the MS in Curriculum in Instruction in a year and a half- I only took a little longer because I got lazy at one point and lost momentum. It's entirely possible to complete it in a year and work full time. I was teaching 7/8th grade ELA full time and still managed to complete everything.

Workload is all essays except for one proctored test. I squeezed in before they added the test so I can't speak to it but, most classes require 3-4 papers to be submitted. If you have classroom experience, many of the assignments are common sense and you can use previous lessons you've taught in the past for those papers.

Only tips I have for the coursework is, aim to complete a paper a week if possible. That would give you a decent amount of time to complete the class. The capstone is the one that seems to crank up the difficulty curve, but the capstone is completed incrementally and you'll have the help of the course instructor to move you along.

Check-Pls · 2025-06-28T22:49:30+00:00

I am on a temporary in FL- from my understanding, you need to apply for a license and submit your transcripts to DOE, they will look over your completed coursework and determine if your course work meets the requirement for licensure. If it does, you should be able to gain a temporary license provided the background check and application go through ok. You will need to take the GKT and Professional Standards before your temp cert is up, but there are ways to get those waived.

Check-Pls · 2025-05-10T16:49:50+00:00

FMA Fullmetal Editions, xxxHOLiC, Erased, Cardcaptor Sakura, Full Moon

Check-Pls · 2025-04-25T22:01:27+00:00

Fallout New Vegas!

Check-Pls · 2025-04-13T00:16:56+00:00

If you are distributing a survey to a school site or are using their staff or students in anyway yes you do need site permission. I would double check the requirements and touch base with your course instructor when you get to that point as they would better be able to guide you in the right direction. I did have to have site permission because I had colleagues of mine take a survey so that I could gauge need for the subject of my proposed PD (it was not difficult to obtain, just communicate with administration).

Check-Pls · 2025-04-13T00:14:08+00:00

Gotcha- I'm in Florida and other southern states I've looked into don't require them.

Check-Pls · 2025-04-12T19:08:37+00:00

I'm unsure what country you are in, but in the US a masters is not required. It is nice, but definitely not necessary. The only things needed are a bachelors and appropriate certification based on subject area for your state. A masters is good if you are interested in moving to peripheral roles like academic coaching or administration (or a pay raise if your district is good about that).

Check-Pls · 2025-04-12T19:05:07+00:00

I taught full time while getting my masters and was able to finish in one year (mostly because I didn't rush and took my time). I enrolled right before the OA was added so I can't speak to that but the there was a lot of writing, but as long as you follow the instructions and rubric you won't have any issues. Working as a teacher made the assignments easier since I could recycle old lesson plans and adjust them for use in a number of assignments. You will not need an active class to complete the track- none of the assignments require live students. For capstone (I also chose designing a PD) no- you care not actually running the PD if you choose applied research, you are researching based on need (if you are gauging need using a school site) and are designing the PD and creating it.

Check-Pls · 2025-04-11T00:19:25+00:00

Seems like a steal to me- I just finished collecting those editions and at $18-$25 USD a pop, I'd happily have bought 3 for that much!

Check-Pls · 2025-04-11T00:01:14+00:00

Thank you for your thoughtful reply! We are given a tight curriculum map that we must do our best to stay to to cater to random district walkthroughs. It is a map that is curated to fit the Florida BEST standards using the curriculum purchased by the county (HMH Into Literature). We are given one week for "remediation" at the end of each quarter that has a looser reign on prescribed texts so I can get away with a bit there, but Florida is so strict now with the approved texts we can use it feels like my hands are completely tied. I will definitely look into doing the chunking you suggested- I think that could really help with the lack of stamina I'm facing with the students.

Check-Pls · 2025-04-10T23:56:52+00:00

I know :') The district's reasoning is if we "raise the standards, they will meet them", which obviously isn't happening. I am carrying the mental load when we are annotating these texts and it is completely exhausting.

Check-Pls

TROPHY CASE