Heidi 0:01
This is episode 188 of Teacher Approved.
Heidi 0:06
You're listening to Teacher Approved, the podcast helping educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I'm Heidi.
Emily 0:14
And I'm Emily. We're the creators behind Second Story Window, where we give research based and teacher approved strategies that make teaching less stressful and more effective. You can check out the show notes and resources from each episode at secondstorywindow.net.
Speaker 1 0:29
We're so glad you're tuning in today. Let's get to the show.
Emily 0:32
Hey there. Thanks for joining us today. In today's episode, we're talking about how to thrive during term four and sharing a teacher approved tip for how to maximize your test prep time.
Heidi 0:48
Let's start this episode with a try it tomorrow, where we share a quick win that you can try in your classroom right away. Emily, what is our prompt this week?
Emily 0:57
This week, why not try playing some fun music before school starts? You could do something chill and instrumental, or some kid friendly pop. You know they would love that.
Heidi 1:07
If you have Spotify, we have a couple of playlists that might work for you. Check out the show notes for links to our teacher approved parent conference playlist. Now that doesn't mean you only can play it during parent conferences. It's four hours of chill but upbeat instrumental music. And then there is also a link to our kid friendly pop playlist.
Emily 1:28
If you like this idea or anything else we share here on the podcast, would you take a second and give us a five star rating and review? Ratings and reviews are one way new listeners find us. So every rating and review is really a huge help to us.
Speaker 1 1:42
This episode is going out at the very end of March, which means that for some of you, term four is right on the doorstep, and for some of you, you are already in the thick of it.
Emily 1:52
Yeah, the fourth term has its own distinct personality.
Speaker 1 1:57
Right. If you went out to another teacher in November and said it's term two, they'd probably give you a weird look, but if you say to a teacher in April, it's term four, they know exactly what you mean.
Heidi 2:10
Yeah, there is so much rolled into that last term. There's the anticipation of knowing that the end is in sight, and then the dread of realizing how many days and how much work stand between you and that end.
Speaker 1 2:24
Then there's the busyness that comes with all of the extra assemblies, the field trips, class programs, spirit days, field day and on and on and on.
Heidi 2:33
And all of these extras take up so much energy. Then there's the stress to get in all of your content before the end, the stress of managing testing, catching up on all the grading, getting your classroom organized, starting to pack things up and on and on and on.
Speaker 1 2:49
The on and ons never stop. But you can't forget that you still have a classroom full of kids who are also ready for a break. You not only have to keep them busy, but you have to keep them thinking. That means planning engaging lessons, even though you are at the end of your pacing guides, plus you have the management headaches that come with all of the increased behaviors that crop up this time of year.
Heidi 3:11
And all of this is happening while you are at the very lowest point of your energy levels. And your own personal life might be getting crazy with end of your responsibilities for your own family.
Speaker 1 3:21
So all of that is to say term four is a lot, and because it's so close to the end and you're so very tired, often, it feels like the best we can do is just survive. We're just gonna white knuckle our way to the end.
Heidi 3:34
When energy is so low, it might not feel worth it to put in any effort to thrive at this time of the year. We get it, all we have to do is make it 45 more days, and then we're free and clear. But what if focusing on just surviving is making it harder to actually survive? If we're dragging ourselves through today just to make it to tomorrow, it's likely that we're making tomorrow harder on ourselves.
Speaker 1 3:57
Something's gotta give, and there have been plenty of May afternoons where I became the kind of teacher that I swore I would never be. I didn't have any fuel left in the tank. So instead of being intentional and responsive, I was snippy and reactive, and I can admit this, I was also a little shouty.
Heidi 4:15
Oh no. It's an exhausting way to spend nine weeks. We want better for you and your students, if for no other reason, that you deserve to step into your summer break and embrace your downtime instead of needing to wrap in a blanket and disassociate for three weeks in order to recover from what has just taken place.
Speaker 1 4:34
So let's take a few minutes here at the start of term four and figure out what you need in order to thrive this time of year. Now, thriving in the fourth term probably looks different than other times of the year. Maybe this is not the moment to start batching a week's worth of salads for lunch or scheduling regular outings with the friends that you want to reconnect with. Let's just save that kind of thriving for a season where you have some energy to give.
Heidi 4:58
Yeah, thriving in term four means you're meeting the minimum standards of care for yourself and your loved ones and making it through the day without having to drag yourself. I'd say we're lowering the bar on success, but even that might be too big of a goal. We're not going to be high jumping anything, no matter how low.
Speaker 1 5:17
No way, I think term four is probably more of a limbo contest than a high jump, and we're gonna raise the bar way, way, way up. So all you have to do is walk under it. You don't even have to duck your head. As long as you keep walking, you're doing great.
Heidi 5:33
So let's employ some tools here to help you win that Limbo walking contest. And the tools we're going to use are reflecting, assessing, and acting.
Speaker 1 5:42
Think of these steps as your past, present, and future. We start by reflecting on term three, or you can reflect on the whole school year up to this point. We won't stop you if you want to. And then we assess by taking stock of what's going on in our lives right now. Then we are ready to plan our future by making an action plan for moving forward into term four.
Heidi 6:03
If this sounds like a lot to keep track of, don't you worry, because we got you covered. Last year we released our end of year roadmap. This was a digital planner to help you wrap up the school year and start the summer with intention. But now we've added some new pages to help you clarify and organize the last few weeks of the school year.
Speaker 1 6:21
This is in Google Sheets, so it's easy to access anywhere you need to reference it. And did we mention that it's free? Head to the link in the show notes so you can download your very own copy.
Heidi 6:32
I'm sure we'll be talking more about this resource in upcoming episodes. But for now, let's focus on the pages, specifically for term four. To start with, we have a journal page for reflecting on your progress. The first step is to review what's been going well and what you want to carry forward for the rest of the year.
Speaker 1 6:49
Then there's space to evaluate how you want term four to be similar to previous terms and how you want it to be different.
Heidi 6:55
That takes care of our reflection tasks. Then let's assess where we are. Start by clarifying the details. What responsibilities and commitments are you managing as you go into term four? How are you feeling? How are you taking care of yourself? It's not just school that ramps up this time of year. There are dozens of obligations that crop up as well. So we want to take those into account.
Speaker 1 7:18
And then we want to take stock. What's working well? What are you looking forward to? Obviously, we have summer break on the horizon, but try to find a few positives happening before the last day of school. Having things to look forward to, even small things can make a long day a lot easier to handle.
Heidi 7:36
After taking stock, it's time to identify your needs. There are several questions about this topic to help you really zero in on how you can best take care of yourself at a time when taking care of yourself is the last thing you have energy for.
Speaker 1 7:50
And when we say, Take care of yourself, please remember we are not talking about setting a personal record in training for a marathon. We are talking about having the minimums, getting to bed at a decent time. Isn't that the hard thing? Having clothes that don't smell, and having food to feed people?
Heidi 8:08
Yeah, we want you to be able to thrive in the next few weeks, but thriving just means having your needs met. It doesn't mean you have to be living as the best version of yourself. The best thing you can do right now is embrace the limitations of the season you're in. If that means eating out more than you'd like, that's okay. Remember, term four is not forever.
Speaker 1 8:26
And that's why the last question in this section of the end of yearr roadmap is, how can you have grace for yourself in this season of life? If the best you can manage for a workout is parking your car in the far end of the lot so you have to walk a little bit farther at the end of the day, that's okay. Your capacity and your capability are two different things, and if your capacity is diminished right now, that is totally normal.
Heidi 8:51
Please remind yourself that you're not failing and you're not letting anyone down. You're doing what you have to to meet your needs and the needs of the people relying on you. You can worry about the gourmet meals and perfectly spotless house in July, if you even ever want to worry about those things.
Speaker 1 9:07
Those are kind of down on the list. Well, now that we have figured out our past and present, let's focus on the future. We're going to create an action plan for term four, and we start where we always start with planning, by getting out the calendar.
Heidi 9:21
Yep, grab that calendar and then add all of the fixed events to your schedule. When is Field Day and the school fundraiser? How about the upcoming field trip and all of the testing days? There's a lot going on this time of year that you don't get any control over.
Speaker 1 9:36
Oh, no joke, those sorts of responsibilities are what we call barrel tasks. I promise there's method to this madness. If you are old enough, think back to the original Donkey Kong game. And if you are not old enough to remember that, just imagine an old arcade game where Mario is trying to rescue his true love, Princess Pauline. He has to jump giant holes on the floor and scale ladders to reach her.
Heidi:Those obstacles are like a regular day of teaching. You're already at your max capacity just dealing with the daily hazards. But then something happens. A giant ape starts hurling barrels at you in an attempt to knock you down.
Speaker 1 10:13
Okay, maybe that isn't literally what's happening, but it feels like that's what's happening. Donkey Kong is chucking barrel after barrel at poor Mario, and if you open your school email in April, it can feel exactly the same. Now your class needs to decorate a thank you poster to hang in the office for Administrative Professionals day, and the district literacy coaches will be at your school on Wednesday, and now you need to drop everything to teach reading during the 30 minutes that they are scheduled to be in your class, even though that's normally your math time, and you need to sign up for a time slot to volunteer at the school carnival next Friday, and on and on and on. Those are barrel tasks, and they are exhausting.
Heidi:Yeah, not just exhausting, but they feel never ending this time of year. Rather than trying to dodge each barrel as it comes, let's make a list of what's likely headed our way. If you've taught before, make a list of all the things that added to the craziness last year. If you haven't taught before, reach out to co workers who might be able to give you more of a heads up.
Speaker 1 11:13
With your list in front of you, decide if there's anything that you can just let go of. Hopefully there are a few things that you can drop, but barrel tasks largely come from the outside, so there might not be much that you can skip.
Heidi:The next thing to figure out is what you can do to make each of those things easier. Maybe you can run a bunch of copies at once, or maybe you can show a movie one afternoon, or in smaller chunks over a few days, so that you can get your scores input. Or maybe you can stay 10 minutes late every day to pack up a tiny part of your room. We're going to take on these barrels a tiny bit at a time.
Speaker 1 11:49
We don't want to forget anything important, so to help you tackle this in a systematic way, we have some lists in the end of year roadmap. Now, don't feel like you have to use all of these unless they are all helpful for you. But first we have a task list, so break down all of those to do's by task type. So that means is this a planning task or an organizing task or a collaboration task? Add all of those tasks to your list.
Heidi:Once you know all your term four tasks, you can add them to the task status list. This will help you break down tasks by type and also identify what the next step for each task should be.
Speaker 1 12:24
There's also a handy feature with this list that lets you label the priority of each task. You can mark your most important tasks as a Level A, your next most important tasks are level B and so on. And then you can rank all of the level tasks in importance from 1 to 12. So your A1 task is most important, A2 is the second most important. You know, when you get to E5, it's probably not that vital.
Heidi:This step can help you know where to focus most of your time and energy. If we're not clear on what matters most, it's really easy to devote a lot of very limited resources to tasks that don't move the needle, when what we should be focusing on is getting our grading caught up or cleaning out our math manipulatives.
Speaker 1 13:04
If ranking your task isn't helpful to you, you might want to use the tasks by location form. This guides you through organizing your to do list by where you are when you do that task. Is the task something you can do online? Is it something you need to do in your classroom or the work room? And then you can break down each task by how much it costs in terms of time and energy and how important it is to the success of your other goals. Based on that information, you can decide how urgent each task is. Do you need to do it now, do it later, delegate it, or just drop it all together?
Heidi:This sheet is handy because it can help you make the most of any random moments you might have. If your class is watching a 15 minute science video, what could you do with that time? You can pull up this list of tasks by location and quickly identify the tasks that need to be done in your classroom. Then you can see which tasks are most important and can be done in the 15 minutes you have available.
Speaker 1 13:58
As teachers, we really have to seize any pocket of prep time that comes our way. Having a list of tasks that are already labeled so you know exactly what to do with the few minutes you have will make it so much easier to be productive.
Emily:Oh, yeah. And if you're like me, you spend half your work time trying to figure out what to work on. This way the thought process is already managed, and you can jump right in.
Heidi:And then our last task list is for those barrel tasks. There's a space for listing all of your barrel tasks. You might want to limit yourself to just term four tasks, or maybe you want to be the overachiever and list out the tasks that come flying at you all year long.
Emily:If you need to get the gears turning, there's a huge list of suggestions, including things like sub plans, student birthdays, award ceremonies, field trips, parent conferences, class parties and so so much more.
Speaker 1 14:47
As you scroll down on that page, there are boxes to help you plan out each of those barrel tasks. Ideally, you'll be able to find several steps for each task that you can do in advance, so that when the time arrives, you are all ready to go. It's already handled.
Heidi:The nice thing about having this as a digital form is that you can add as many boxes as you need. There are spaces to plan 10 barrel tasks, but you can easily add as many boxes as you want, because we know that you likely have more than 10 barrel tasks coming your way.
Speaker 1 15:16
Besides the reflection pages and the task lists, another page that might help you in term four is the thank you page, if you want to send notes for any teacher appreciation or end of your gifts.
Heidi:You can also get started on your Ta-da list of things that went well this year, and your fix it list for things that you want to do differently next school year.
Speaker 1 15:35
And then before you know it, we're going to be talking about all the recovery and readiness pages to help you plan your summer break. It's just two and a half months away.
Emily:So as we step into term four, let's do it with intention. Yes, it is exhausting, yes it is overwhelming, but that doesn't mean we have to white knuckle our way to the finish line. By taking just a little time now to reflect, assess and act, we can make these next few weeks more manageable, not just for our students, but for us too.
Heidi:Remember, it's not about doing anything perfectly. You just need to take care of yourself and prioritize what truly matters. Know where to invest your time and energy. Give yourself grace and let's tackle term four.
Emily:So make sure to grab our end of your roadmap freebie from the link in the show notes. It will help you make a clear plan for moving forward. We promise you've got this. And if you find our system of planning helpful, this is just a little plug to join us over at our sister podcast, sister in both senses of the word, the Holiday Headstart Podcast, where we put these same kind of systems to work to help us plan our personal lives and all of the special, exciting days that happen in your life each year.
Speaker 1 16:44
Yes, please join us at the Holiday Headstart, we have a lot of fun over there. And we would also love to hear what you are looking forward to in term four. Come join the conversation in our Teacher Approved Facebook group.
Emily:Now let's talk about this week's teacher approved tip. Each week we leave you with a small, actionable tip that you can apply in your classroom today. This week's teacher approved tip is, be strategic with your test prep energy. Tell us more about it, Heidi.
Speaker 1 17:10
I want to make it clear that we believe that every student deserves to make a year's worth of growth every year of school. But unfortunately, as we know, standardized testing does not take that into account. You've got your group of kids who started the year already knowing a lot of what's going to be on the test. And on the other end of the spectrum, you've got your kids who are going to need a year or more to catch up to this year's content. But all of those kids are given the same assessment, and it doesn't matter how much they've grown, only whether or not they meet the standard. Now with those limitations in mind, one thing that might be helpful in this testing season is to focus your review efforts on the kids who are close to getting it but need a little more support. This is where you have the greatest opportunity for improvement.
Emily:Obviously, your whole class review sessions are still really valuable. Go back to episodes 182, 183, and 185 if you want some simple and effective strategies for maximizing your review time. But if you have time for some small group review you'll get more benefit by using that time to target kids who are on the verge of mastery.
Speaker 1 18:16
Right. If you've got five kids who can solidify their understanding of adding fractions in three small group lessons, or you have five kids who will need three or more months to reach that same understanding. It makes the most sense to use your pre testing time to work with kids who are ready for that next step.
Emily:Plus, if you're putting pressure on kids to cram information that they're not developmentally ready for you're probably harming their growth in the long run anyway.
Speaker 1 18:44
Not to mention you're needlessly adding to their stress. We know these tests have very few benefits, so let's not give them any more power than they already have. Focus on the quick wins when it comes to the test, and spend the rest of your time teaching your students the way that you know is best.
Heidi:To wrap up the show, we're sharing what we're giving extra credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra credit?
Emily:I'm giving extra credit to the blade life razor storage device. It's this handy container that you store your razor in vertically, and then it removes the moisture and oxygen, which helps your razor blades last longer. And it sounds like it's like an electric device or something. It's not. It's just like a container, but they call it a device, but it's like, super airtight. You put the razor into the handle, and it suspends it up vertically, and then you put the, like, clear bottom part on, and then at the bottom of it has some kind of cartridge that, like, draws the moisture out. And it's really airtight once you close it. So I've been using it for a few months now, and I think it really does make a difference. And it is designed to fit pretty much any kind of razor, so it's basically universal. So yeah, check it out if you want to make your razor blades last longer. Well, that sounds really handy. Plus, I feel like it keeps it cleaner, which I also like. What are you giving extra credit to, Heidi?
Speaker 1 20:02
Well, my extra credit goes to the book A Bit Much by Lyndsay Rush. Emily actually gave me this book of poetry for Christmas, and I have really enjoyed it. You might know Lyndsay as Mary Oliver's drunk cousin on social media, and she's a very fun follow.
Emily:Yeah, she is.
Heidi:She's really clever, and she just doesn't take anything too seriously. And I mean, how could you not love a poem called Siri Play Peaches by Justin Bieber, or this one, the FBI Agent Watching Me Through My MacBook Camera Knows. But even with the silly titles, these poems have a lot of depth. There's one I love called A Race Against the Guac, but it's so, it's really poignant about how women's aging is compared to the disintegration of an avocado. But the truth is, ladies, we were never guacamole. We have been queso this whole time.
Emily:Totally queso.
Heidi:So April is National Poetry Month, so why not treat yourself to a delightful poetry book?
Emily:I might have to borrow this back from you. I haven't read it.
Heidi:It's worth it. You'll love it.
Heidi:That's it for today's episode. Make sure to grab our end of year roadmap freebie from the link in the show notes to help you make a plan for thriving in term four.
Heidi:We hope you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Approved. I'm Heidi.
Heidi:And I'm Emily. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow or subscribe in your podcast app so that you never miss an episode.
Speaker 1 21:27
You can connect with us and other teachers in the teacher approved Facebook group. We'll see you here next week. Bye, for now.
Emily:Bye.