‘Academic-year-starts’ are crucial periods of transitioning #students from their previous year learning milestones in another grade to their current ones. Even more so with physical classes resuming, these initial 3/4 months or Quarter 1 becomes a huge opportunity for #teachers to rebuild and reboot. Invited to observe processes as part of the ACE Sports Edu #schoolaudit vertical, we are repeatedly mentoring teachers to prioritise goals for their students, and the base for this lies in documenting through #preassessment strategies. ‘What do your children already know (chances are many are about ‘remembering’ facts not the conceptual understanding) and use that to customise learning using smaller group dynamics, one to one engagement, reenforcement work at home and perhaps scaling the curriculum targets to ‘revisit’ some concepts that lack understanding. The classic error is to march forward because ‘lesson plans’ have been designed! This leads to class room management challenges not to mention a widening gap, noticeable across K-12. Ideally, the summer should have had some continued activity for students, but even if that has not happened, and I am one for periods of downtime for students, teachers need to cleverly bring children up to speed. Writing is a big worry for children used to submitting work online, and therefore build their muscle memory by smaller tasks over a period of time that is ‘guided’, use of graphic organisers and mindmaps to begin with and gradually move them into ‘long writes’. These ‘short-writes’ work brilliantly, as the teacher becomes the facilitator who helps the students ‘break-up’ their thoughts, providing feedback in a timely manner and creating confidence as the short-write scaffolds into a long one which then happens independently (yes, our goal as #educators is this ownership we hope #students have but for that we need to demonstrate to them how it can be achieved). Our advice to teachers is also to spell out expectations and share the ‘check-list’ for students to review their own work before a submission deadline. Presentation, title, spacing, grammar, spell check, key points, conclusion etc …. We have got to create ‘pathways for success’ for these students, and simply acknowledge and accept that this is important. Communicate to #parents who are tied to ‘syllabus’ goals (daily updates on what was achieved) and explain the rationale that to create a solid foundation that can then increase pace, the period of transition will be a slow but important bridge to cross. #customisinglearningmilestones must be subject specific and planned quarter-wise. This time tested strategy has worked for many of our ACE powered #consultancy #schools, and hope this #monday morning reminder gets you to incorporate it as well! #education #teachertraining #teachinglearning #principals #parenting
