Teaching middle school can be both rewarding and challenging. Whether you’re teaching middle school for the first time or you have years of experience behind you, there are always new things to do in the classroom. Middle school children are at an age where they are growing rapidly physically, emotionally, and socially.
As a middle school teacher, it’s important to use all the advice and resources at your disposal to make your job as enjoyable as possible. Take a look at some of the teacher tips below.
1. Plan
Planning is essential in teaching. It’s wise to set out a plan for the year before the school year starts. Planning will allow you to quickly find solutions to any problems that crop up in the classroom.
Find out what the state standards are for your class and read through what is expected of your students before you teach them. Using a middle school SEL curriculum will help you plan appropriately.
2. Procedures
Procedures in the classroom are one of the best ways to maintain good behavior. One of the best middle school teacher tips we’ve come across is incorporating hand signs in the classroom. For instance, if a student wants to use the bathroom, they would use a hand sign to tell the teacher.
This minimizes disruption in the classroom and the students don’t get embarrassed by having to announce in front of their peers. There are tons of procedures you can implement in your classroom to make things run smoothly each day.
3. Rules and Consequences
It doesn’t matter how thoroughly you’ve planned or how many procedures you have in place; there will always be at least one child who challenges you. When bad behavior occurs in the classroom, you must be ready to manage it. Before the school year starts, consider your classroom rules and the consequences for breaking them.
Stay consistent with your consequences and display them clearly in the classroom where children can see them.
4. Maintain Your Classroom
Your classroom should always be clean and functional. The resources that you use should be easy for you and your students to find. Every minute in a classroom is precious and if your students see that you’re unorganized, they’ll take advantage of it.
Try and organize all of your worksheets and reading materials into sections according to when you will need to use them. Make sure your students are doing their bit and clearing things away as they should.
Be a Competent Middle School Teacher
Although there are lots of middle school teacher tips, there will also be a lot of times when you’ll need to use your intuition. Being a teacher often means problem-solving on your feet and coming up with creative ways to help children learn. The more you know about middle school teaching, the easier it will become to manage day-to-day surprises.
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