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Hi all! I’m working on my masters in secondary science education at WGU. i’m starting observation teaching in january. I’ll be with a biology teacher for a high school. I’ve taught 9th grade health and substituted 7th grade, 8th grade science, and 9th grade biology in a private school-but this will be my first experience in a public school (i didn’t even go to public school). I’m wondering if anyone has any advice or knows what i can expect to experience. I’m just trying to prepare myself mentally. Thanks!

im thinking of getting TESOL Certified and teaching abroad but am unsure if its legit

I've got a k12 license in art. I've got an add on certification for AIG in which I did a few courses and passed an exam (I think - it was quite some time ago!) I've been teaching 30 years. I'm in a position now where I teach about high tech careers. I am massively interested in traching game design, and fill the remaining part of my day with any adobe programs as I've done graphic design on the side since 1997. I don't know why but I cannot wrap my brain around how to be qualified to teach the CTE course for any of the game development. I'm also curious how to become qualified to teach any of the cte classes for graphic design. I see different things from having to take courses, to simply passing a praxis. I'm in nc. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thank you so much !

Hi I'm looking at my options and deciding what school I should go to in CT. I have also enlisted in the army national guard so they would be helping me pay for my tuition. So I hope to start in the spring semester before I head off to boot camp in June so I could get one semester down. I was wondering what colleges are the best for either degree. I have already went to college for something totally different and got a associates degree so i am hoping that some of it can be transferred. I also live in south Windsor so colleges that are closer to me would be better. Can you also take these classses online?

Hi all,

I'm an English teacher in Korea. This is my first year, and I will be staying a second.

Soon my middle-school 3rd grade students will be graduating. I want to make the last class meaningful in some way, not just a free-period or only a game.

How do you properly say goodbye to your students? Do you dedicate a whole class to reflection for the year, only a couple of minutes? I know I mean a lot to some of these kids, as Korea is stressful as hell and I'm the 'fun teacher'. I want them to get closure in saying bye, but I don't want to over do it.

Any suggestions?

So far I am thinking of doing a 'hike' drawing/reflection activity, where we look at what were the difficult parts, the easy parts, the fun parts and the friends we made.

Hi everyone, I’m a sophomore in college in Southern California. I’m an English major at UCLA and class standing wise I’m a senior. I plan on becoming a HS English teacher, and I know the credentialing programs through like CSU’s take roughly 1.5 years. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are many resources for aspiring teachers through my school. I didn’t know if there are any ways for me to kind of get a head start on the credential or getting any hands on experience through subbing/volunteering while still earning my bachelors.

If anyone has any advice or tips it would be greatly appreciated!! I’m an extremely low income student who relies on FAFSA, so I’m quite worried about the costs surrounding credentialing/living costs once I graduate and no longer qualify for the bulk of aid I receive currently. If even possible, I just kind of want to get as ahead as I can. I was thinking about going through CSULB for my teaching credential program once I graduate.

Hi everyone, For background knowledge, I had a pretty shitty career thus far: first job (long-term sub assignment) left me highly medicated and a starting of a lawsuit due to abuse I faced, then a building sub who was underpaid and not SPED certified, but still was forced to be an LTS in that field, and now an elementary classroom teacher (in a new state FYI).

My new school has been fantastic to work for and I am getting as much support as we have available, but I really am struggling mentally. I have many apathetic students who verbally share “that I hate them” to get my attention and to get out of work. It’s so upsetting because I spend HOURS working on refining my management and finding different tools and skills to use to help these students feel successful despite their apathy. I feel like I am unable to contribute to my team and they’re carrying me this year because of how much I’m struggling to manage this classroom. These are 7-8 year olds btw. Honestly, every single support I have been receiving is positive, but this job is killing me.

I care so much for my students and spent so much time building rapport with them and their caregivers. I don’t know where I fucked up with my management skills because I had such a high reputation at my last school for having these skills. I have never been verbally abused this badly from students especially at this age.

At the end of the day, I can’t leave this job this school year because I have little savings and am living paycheck to paycheck, but how do you all cope with this burnout? I literally get home and either cry or nap, sometimes both. I’m TIRED of being “bullied” and have spent so much time teaching SEL and coping skills in the classroom, yet it’s these few cases that are draining me daily. I want to exercise more and I eat healthily as is, but I still feel like I’m dying at such a young age while in this profession.

Sorry for the vent, clearly it’s the first day back after Thanksgiving, but I need help finding an out of this career soon. I don’t know how people have done this for their entire lives let alone be parents and have social lives on it.

My first job! I'm reposting this because I didn't state in the previous one's title that I could use some advice. Background:

Hi all! After student teaching and subbing in middle school over the past year, I (24M) got my first teaching job thst starts before soon. It is at a private Christian (Protestant) School who has rave reviews from everyone I talk to, including someone I sit with in church. I really like the environment and my spiritual views align very closely with theirs (not surprising as some of the staff and students go to my church).

I will be teaching 6th grade, 9th, 11th, and 12 grade (three preps, six classes total). I'm floating the first few weeks (the classroom is being built, finished in a few months) and co-teaching with various teachers because the previous teacher has already left and they agreed to take over various classes until he holidays. I'm meeting with some of my current colleagues this week who have experience taking over classes midyear. I did two demo lessons and though it's in part of being timid of this "guest teacher," the worst behavior I had was a kid asking to go to the restroom while I was speaking and another off task.

So, here's my questions/advice needed:

1. What advice do you have for teaching multiple grades and classes?

2. Icebreakers per various age. For the older kids, I plan to give time to have conversations before and after class versus the younger kids time to answer questions.

3. How to acclimate to the various coteachers I'll temporarily have? I don't want to come in strong, but it's still MY classes. I'm closer to their age so there's that already working against me somewhat.

4. (Biggie!) General advice for taking over a class, especially a floating one, midyear?

5. Anything else? I may update.

By worth it I mean is it worth my time? How helpful, how impactful is tutoring basic math in my community? I like math and teaching, but because I'm a dropout I couldn't tutor anything too advanced, which is fine. I saw that my local library offers tutoring for math which caught my attention as something I could do in my spare time. I thought this sub could offer some advice on this matter. Thanks!

Hi all! After student teaching and subbing in middle school over the past year, I (24M) got my first teaching job thst starts before soon. It is at a private Christian (Protestant) School who has rave reviews from everyone I talk to, including someone I sit with in church. I really like the environment and my spiritual views align very closely with theirs (not surprising as some of the staff and students go to my church).

I will be teaching 6th grade, 9th, 11th, and 12 grade (three preps, six classes total). I'm floating the first few weeks (the classroom is being built, finished in a few months) and co-teaching with various teachers because the previous teacher has already left and they agreed to take over various classes until he holidays. I'm meeting with some of my current colleagues this week who have experience taking over classes midyear. I did two demo lessons and though it's in part of being timid of this "guest teacher," the worst behavior I had was a kid asking to go to the restroom while I was speaking and another off task.

So, here's my questions/advice needed:

1. What advice do you have for teaching multiple grades and classes?

2. Icebreakers per various age. For the older kids, I plan to give time to have conversations before and after class versus the younger kids time to answer questions.

3. How to acclimate to the various coteachers I'll temporarily have? I don't want to come in strong, but it's still MY classes. I'm closer to their age so there's that already working against me somewhat.

4. (Biggie!) General advice for taking over a class, especially a floating one, midyear?

5. Anything else? I may update.

I’ve been teaching for five years now and while I love my job, sometimes I feel like my life these past five years has been just that, work. I’ve had no significant social life or experiences outside of work and I’ve come to notice that it’s mostly because of stress. I work 7:00 to 3:00 with a half hour lunch, and as many of you know, teaching is a job where you’re always on, so I end up every day feeling mentally exhausted and it doesn’t matter if I take a nap or rest, I just can’t do anything when I get home except leave things ready for the next day. On weekends I sometimes don’t like to go out or do anything that requires me to focus on anyone else or anything, because on Monday I go to work as if I hadn’t rested at all. So I’ve noticed it’s the stress, but I can’t find a way to get it out of my body. What do y’all do?

I do know is that I am very fortunate to have had the whole week off for Thanksgiving. Nonetheless, it feels like yesterday that I went home from work with that hopeful glint of turkey in my eye.

Good luck tomorrow, everyone! May the next three weeks fly by!

I used to be of the mindset that I wanted to be solely in charge of my classroom and I absolutely didn't want anyone else "intruding." Now I think this was born of my anxiety and insecurity around having another adult in the room to observe me and see me fail at stuff in real time, which usually I can just laugh about and redo when I'm with my students. Now that I'm a bit older and wiser, I think every single classroom could benefit from having a para. I'm not just talking inclusion classrooms - every. single. classroom. With the way teaching is nowadays, and with the way students are, and with all the expectations teachers and students alike are subject to now, having another adult in the classroom would be a godsend, I think. Especially - at least for elementary, I don't have any knowledge of middle or high school classrooms - in Honors classes, or at least high-to-mid-level classes. Imagine everything you could get done if you had an extra pair of hands and an extra pair of eyes in the room!

Hi, I'm looking for advice.

I have been giving private language lessons for a while. I have been approached by a former student who wants me to organise and teach a beginner language class for a community centre. This centre works with courses that are specular to the 4 school terms, 10 weeks per term. I have a textbook that I know it's gonna work well with such a course. My only doubt is about the course structure: I'm gonna have ~10 students for the first term, and I'll start from the beginning of the book.

The problem is: the enrolment is just for 1 term. What if I have new students in term 2? It wouldn't be logic to keep going with the book with people that are just starting, unless it's all new students and all the term 1 students wouldn't continue.

The centre made clear this is the way they have been doing it with all the courses and they wouldn't be keen to create a new class with students that are starting on term 2, unless it's a big number of students.

How to structure such course? I'm in a pickle.

Thank you for reading

Cheers

Hi, new teacher here. I teach Mathematics and Chemistry at the Higher Secondary Level. Now that the year is done, I keep wondering: should I refine my teaching slides every year? I started this year with PPT slides for teaching, but I can't help but feel they can be too restrictive sometimes. Should I instead move all my notes to MSWord? As you can see, my two subjects are equation-heavy, with a lot of subscripts, superscripts, Greek-letters. May I have opinions from seasoned teachers?

I’m student teaching this semester. I have my final observation in a couple of days. One thing my supervisor will for sure be looking for is engagement. I currently teach 10th grade geometry. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to boost engagement? He’s looking for me to call on them or ask them to stand up and walk around or have them ask questions. I will say it’s rare for this class to ask questions, they are very quiet except for 1 table.

hi everyone! im currently a teaching assistant and just had a funny little story to share. i work with pre-k aged children and within my class i have a set of twins (two girls who i’ll call jane and sara). while at recess today, one of the little boys (who i’ll call ethan) in my class kept bothering jane. now jane is unfortunately very quiet and doesn’t like to speak up when she needs to (im trying to work with her on this fingers crossed). he would follow her around even when she asked him to stop, kept asking her questions, and just being overall annoying. she went to go play with her sister on the swings and the boy followed her there. the first time i checked on them i saw the little boy behind her trying to push her on the swings and i unfortunately missed the subtle signs that she was becoming progressively irritated. i turned my head to check on the other kids and the next thing i knew, i started to hear a kid screaming. i immediately went to check what was happening and i saw sara beating up on the boy while jane kept saying “i told you so i told you so”. i immediately got them off of each other, let them calm down, and that’s when i learned the entire story. the lead teacher did talk to ethan about respecting people when they say no and did get put in time out for a bit. i talked to sara about how it’s not okay to hit people and that she should’ve came to me, but also that i was proud of her for standing up to her sister. she was also put in time out but not as long as ethan. eventually they both apologized to each other and hugged it out and went right back to playing. i just thought that was a cute story of a sister protecting her other sister. i love working with siblings.

Teacher feedback needed, especially if you know politics!

I am high school teacher, and I've been wanting to get out for a few years now. I'm mainly looking at jobs that are still in the realm of education, as I can't afford to go back to school in order to switch careers. There is a job posting I'm really excited about with a company that partners with schools to help teachers implement specialized programs for their students. It pays well and I am passionate about the work they're doing. They've been in business for just over 20 years, so they're not a startup. Here's my worry-- is Trump REALLY going to dismantle the DoE?! And if so, how will that impact schools in terms of programming? I doubt schools will pay for this kind of extra educational service if they're budgets are slashed. But I wonder if it's mainly wealthy districts that are clients anyway, so maybe it wouldn't matter? I want to find something that makes me happy, but, as my dad reminds me, I have job security where I'm at. What are your thoughts?!

I teach 10th grade ELA and I am the only state tested subject in my department. Our school as an A report card and my scores make up part of that so there is IMMENSE pressure on my from admin to make sure kids are proficient or more on the EOC.

I had a lot of success last year literally teaching kids about the Common Core standards, what each standard looked like, what it was asking, how that looks on an assessment, etc. I wrote assessments for Albert.io for years and it really helped with being able to teach them how to work through a major assessment, test taking strategies, etc. I wanted to teach them how assessments work from the other side of the veil, as it were.

One part of my carefully orchestrated madness is to give them weekly EOC-style practices for homework. And before you come at me, admin requires we give homework, so I don't have a choice with this, only what I assign. I want them to be familiar with the type of questions they get not only on my own assessments but the state's as well. This is a short to medium passage (I rotate between info lit and lit) and they answer 7-8 questions. I do it through Formative so it's graded automatically. I allow them to do corrections for half credit back because I want this to be a learning opportunity.

Problem is, if I'm doing one of these a week, that's at least 8-9 in a grading period. I grade these as classwork which is 20%. Eventually, the more I put in, the less they matter grade-wise. It just disappears into the ether and pretty much ensures I can't grade anything else in that category without bloating the gradebook.

So, I want to continue assigning these practices but wondered is there a better way to grade these? Grade every other one? Average scores of several assignments? Just pick 1-2 at random to grade? What do you guys do for frequent homework?

Hello!

First, since I'm in the teaching sub I wanted to express my appreciation for all dedicated teachers, teaching assistants, professors, et al. I've had to conduct professional training in different countries throughout my career and it's always a challenge deciphering a student body's weaknesses/misunderstandings and pivoting in real-time to find That One Explanation that'll result in an aha moment (oh but it feels amazing when I see it click). I don't think I could handle it as a full-time job.

I'm here to ask about the current state of computer education in schools (particularly middle school and up).

I've seen things online about young new hires not being able to do the most basic functions in a spreadsheet or PowerPoint, which I always waved off as some anti-Gen Z workforce social commentary. However, I just started my masters program and I noticed a concerning trend amongst many of the American students who came in straight from undergrad (so I would assume early 20s).

They can't find their way around a PC.
We just started practice exercises for a mandatory academic research course and the TA had to repeatedly and slowly demo the most basic tasks:

1. Opening our statistical software and loading necessary files. I'm talking about File -> Open -> .exe.
2. Selecting multiple items at once on a spreadsheet. TA and I made eye contact and shared a look of bafflement after he had to demo this MULTIPLE TIMES.
3. Right click -> [relevant action] vs double-clicking, which had the same exact end result. The students kept asking for confirmation that it was the exact same action.
4. 'Apply' vs 'OK' - did not understand that 'Apply' was for the last singular action chosen and kept the relevant menu window open in case you wanted to do more, and that 'OK' applied whatever you chose last and closed the menu. Either way, the demo was a single action so the effect was the same.
5. Not knowing that, if nothing else, you could mess up and hit 'undo' anyway. These students were refusing to click on anything until the TA reassured them multiple times they were clicking on the exact correct thing.

I know from personal experience that switching from PC to Mac or vice versa could cause some confusion, but I've never seen a complete inability to apply basic logical reasoning to find one's way around what I thought was fairly intuitive UI. The problem wasn't just the software btw, even going into a prepped database online to download multiple files to load was giving some students issues.

Do we still have computer skills courses in the US? Is this a Windows thing? Are students even using PC in schools anymore or are most American schools using Mac? Are they using tablets instead? Any other factor that I'm missing?

I'm in my mid-30s btw. I definitely had to suffer through those basic computer skills courses in elementary and middle school, Excel and all. I even took Visual Basic in the 6th grade, which I don't think was the norm back then.

Hopefully this topic hasn't been beaten to death already.

EDIT: I'm a student as well, not the teacher.

EDIT 2: Thanks for all the insight! Seeing Chromebooks come up as a recurring theme. I actually totally forgot they existed since I've never handled one. Didn't realize they're so limited in technical function.

The rainbow graffiti is also mine. Inside joke they will understand.

Earlier this year, I was teaching my 8 year old brother with ADHD to write. I wanted to find some software that would check his handwriting and spelling skills, then have some animated 3D object appear on the paper. This way his writing would "come to life".

I searched online and in the app stores, and could not find anything related. The last year I ended up building an app that did what I envisioned. To my surprise it ended up working better than expected, and was able to teach my brother as well as my 4 year old niece to write. She was fully engaged and wanted to spell cat, dog, and all of the animals in the game.

My question to teachers is would this app be something you would use in a teaching setting? If so what would you add or change to make it more viable in a classroom setting? I am deciding to build it into a small education company and would like some feedback. Thank you

Here is link to the demo that ive been using on my family members. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ab-sees/id6541751007

Technically there should be more Tier 1 students in a school than Tier 2 and Tier 3 - or that's what I always believed. I'm recognizing, the longer I teach, that my school - and I'm sure other schools - are having the opposite problem. My school's population of Tier 2 and Tier 3 students is absolutely massive; they greatly outnumber the kids on Tier 1. Of course this makes it really hard to teach grade level skills because most of the kids I see are not even one grade level below, but multiple. How the hell do we fix this? I'm already getting passing-each other-in-the-hallway reports from grade level teachers below mine to "watch out" for the kids I'll be getting next year because they're already showing signs of being low, not to mention the behavior issues. No wonder I'm so exhausted every day after teaching.

i got the text from my principal this morning. i teach at a small private school and taught him 6-8th grade, he graduated 2 years ago and was a sophomore in highschool. his sister graduated last year and one of his younger brothers is in 7th grade. i’ve never had to deal with something like this before and don’t even know how im going to get myself through the week, let alone be there for my students. this family is pretty well-known at emmy school and he was a really good person. it just feels completely unreal.

I'm a recent college grad, who started teaching part time for this boys high school. I've never really taught or managed a classroom in my life.

To clarify, I'm teaching a remedial math class for ninth graders and a math for business class for 11th graders, roughly a dozen students in each class. I know the material, and apparently, know the material much better than any other teacher they've had previously. (several students told me outright they were glad to have a teacher who actually knew the material)

I guess, I'm so unsure of what to do. I wasn't really given goals to accomplish by the end of the year, and I don't really have a textbook to go off of.

Really, any advice is appreciated. Classroom managements, handling my own inexperience and stutter, lesson planning (what even is that), how to make a test??

HELP

I'm from England and I'm starting to apply for my teacher training.

I'm not sure if this is a silly question but is teaching a lesson standard on many PGCE interviews? I just thought it seems on the bit more on the difficult side for someone who's applying because they don't have a lot of teaching experience and want to become a teacher.

It feels a bit like I'm interviewing to do some training to be a pilot but they want me to demonstrate how to fly the plan first. I'm really working my ass off with this lesson plan/ other stuff for next week but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't extremely stressed about it because I really want to be a history teacher.