Spring Into Action

Welcome back from Spring Break.

If you haven't done so already, now is a very good time to count the days until the end of school.  You might do this in anticipation of summer break, but more importantly, it should be done to help with planning.

We are at the point where full class periods with your students are becoming a limited commodity.  By the time some students miss for AP tests, ECAs, field trips, assemblies, or final exams, depending on which students you teach, you may have fewer days than you think.

You have an incredibly difficult balancing act ahead of you.  My guess is most of you have lots you would love to teach, but you will have to limit what you cover because of time constraints.  You are the content-area experts.  I have no intention of telling you where to make cuts, but I would offer a few guidelines that may help when you find yourself crunched for time. 

We must be more about student learning than teaching.  In other words, it doesn’t matter what we teach if students don’t learn it.  (Think of the “I taught my dog to whistle” cartoon.) Wiggins and McTighe in Understanding by Design, point out that "teaching by mentioning it" is perhaps the least helpful approach to instruction.  In the coming month and a half, many of you will have to fight the temptation to "cover" material without giving opportunity for students to develop "enduring understanding." 

In the long run, less width and more depth is the way to go if you want students to remember the material and be able to apply the learning any time after June.

Secondly, if you, like most teachers at this time of year, have to make tough curricular decisions, make sure to make the main thing the main thing.  Focus on the learning that is truly important, engage your students in the learning at a deep level, and take solace in the knowledge that learning a few things well will have more lasting impact than "covering" many things in ways that will soon be lost.

Spring has sprung, and summer is knocking on the door.  The task of planning how best to use the remaining weeks is not an easy one, but that has not stopped educators before.  Working with kids has never been for the faint of heart. 

Spring forward, HSE.  Make the most of the April and May.

Phil