5 Steps to Positive Accountability for Teachers

When things go wrong, everyone usually wants to know what went wrong and nothing else. The person who made the mistake is left feeling resentful, hurt, or any of a multitude of negative feelings. Lets say that you fail to line your kids up in the cafeteria in a timely and organized manner and as a result get them to gym late. The gym teacher might be upset and ask why the kids are late upon which you respond that you had a hard time settling them down even though you tried many things to get them to line up. The gym teacher might not be very sympathetic about this.

Here are 5 steps to Accountability. If you stick to this structure in a sincere and honest way, it should lead to better understanding and communication between teachers, staff, and administrators. It should also be done when self-reflecting every day so that you can continue to grow.

Photo by Dean Shareski

 1. What have I done to help things go right?

2. What went wrong? Why?

3. What am I going to do differently?

4. How did my team/staff help me?

5. How they could have helped more?

Now lets try the scenario with the gym teacher again. The gym teacher can ask these questions or if the gym teacher does not know about the 5 question accountability process, then the other teacher can approach the gym teacher in the following way:

1. I tried using enforceable statements with the children to get them to line up and I attempted to start lining them up early.
2. I didn't have a chance to tell the kids "less talking, more eating" or to give them a warning that lunch was almost over due to a fight with one of the kids. Some of my kids would not throw their lunch away since they weren't finished.
3. Next time I will ask for help as soon as I see that the kids are resistant and focus on getting the kids to finish eating earlier in case of an unforeseen incident such as a fight.
4. I did not get any help.
5. I wish someone would have offered help when they saw the hard time I was having instead of leaving.


Results = Better communication + Less of a chance for misunderstandings + Self growth

I urge everyone to try this with any problem even outside of school. Try it to help others solve problems or to better yourself by understanding your strengths and weaknesses. It can also be applied in group meetings where everyone takes 40 seconds to quickly go through this process at the start of every meeting.

Like this? Share it with your staff and try to implement it in your school!

Summer or Year off from Teaching: A List on what to do

Wondering what to do on your summer vacation or decided to take a year off? Here's a list of ideas:

Photo by hitzi1000

1. Teach English in  a Summer Camp abroad
• Italy Summer Camp
• Russia Summer Camp
• You can find summer camps in any country by doing an online search. You can search through this list of mostly all ESL Schools worldwide. Most offer summer camps and all pay you.
2.  US Government Sponsored Teaching Programs
• English Language Programs Fulbright Bright Program, English Language Specialist Program, English Language Fellows Program, etc.
• US Department of Education Intern Policy analysis, evaluation and research, etc.
• UN Volunteer Serve for 6-12 months in an underprivileged community. 
3. Teach ESL to adults locally
• ESL Schools worldwide 
• You can also search on Idealist for other opportunities to teach locally. 
4. Substitute Teach
• Here's the NYC Substitute Teacher page.
5. Try something Different
• Sesame Workshop Bring your education experience to Sesame Street!
6. Become a mentor
• Big Brothers Big Sisters 
• imentor Online mentoring
7. Volunteer in an underprivileged country
8. Professional Development
• Free Professional Development Resources 
• TESOL International Association 
• Center for Applied Linguistics 
9. Start your own blog and share what you know 

Please share any other ideas that you may have!

The Boy and The Starfish - Inspirational

Photo by Jasmine Olmo in Jindo, South Korea

One day, an old man was walking along the beach in the early morning and noticed the tide had washed thousands of starfish up on the shore. Up ahead in the distance he spotted a boy who appeared to be gathering up the starfish, and one by one tossing them back into the ocean.

He approached the boy and asked him why he spent so much energy doing what seemed to be a waste of time.

The boy replied, "If these starfish are left out here like this they will bake in the sun, and by this afternoon they will all be dead."

The old man gazed out as far as he could see and responded, "But, there must be hundreds of miles of beach and thousands of starfish. You can't possibly rescue all of them. What difference is throwing a few back going to make anyway?"

The boy then held up the starfish he had in his hand and replied, "It's sure going to make a lot of difference to this one!"

-Author Unknown

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This story resonates with me because I too have picked up as many starfish as I could find and have thrown them back into the water to save them, sadly knowing that I could not save them all, but could only try. This is how you must treat life. You can't save every child, person, tree, or animal but you can try your hardest. When have you been in a similar situation?
 HD9PTN87FCHZ

Spelling Test Alternatives

The people who are against spelling tests usually argue that the students just memorize the words for Friday's spelling test and by Monday, the students have forgotten how to spell most of the words. I believe that the retention rate depends on what activities are done throughout the week for the students to actually learn the words rather than to simply memorize them. Word lists must also go together by common prefixes or suffixes so that students may be able to become independent word learners.

Photo by Adi Respati

Students are usually told to copy words a certain amount of times for homework as practice. They are not using their brain when they are doing this because they are not actually thinking about the words. Spelling activities such as word searches and crossword puzzles make the students work with the words and actually have fun with them. The best alternative to spelling tests are stories where all of the spelling words must be used correctly within it. On Monday when the spelling words are given to the students, they have to write a story for homework and hand it in for correction on Tuesday. During the week, other spelling activities are done at home or in class to reinforce the words and allow the students to use the words. The story is given back to them by Thursday so that the students can correctly rewrite their stories. Finally, on Friday the students must write their story, knowing that spelling, grammar, and punctuation all count. The story can obviously defer since they cannot possibly remember everything that they wrote word-for-word. Bonus points can be given for using the prior weeks spelling words correctly.

Using a common word root list allows for the students to easily remember what words mean and to understand why they mean what they do based on the roots of the word. In the future if they ever encounter a word that they don't know, they can be taught to think of another word with the same root and decipher the word they don't know based on what they know about the root. Starting this way of thinking at a very young age will give students the skills and tools to master vocabulary on their own. During class, you should frequently model your curiosity for words by using an etymology dictionary in front of the students to learn the meaning of word parts.

An alternative to spelling tests is not just a simple change in your approach. It is a whole weeks process that continues for the while school year, filled with spelling and vocabulary activities in and out of class and the creation of better word lists that will eventually make the students curious as to what the common root means in all of the week's words. Simply saying that it all culminates with Friday's spelling word story would be cutting what the students learned short. They have been instilled with the curiosity to decipher word meanings based on other words they know with the same roots and they have become better writers in the process. Memorization isn't the end result, retention is.


You may also be interested in:
Article: "Vocabulary and Spelling Instruction in American Schools" from Instruction: A Models Approach by E. Gunter and L. Schwab
Online Etymology Dictionary 
Spelling Activities
Vocabulary Activities

Free Professional Development Resources for Teachers

Photo by herbrm

• Common Core: Know your state's Common Core and align your lessons to it.
• edWeb: Sign up for free education webinars on  a multitude of topics.
• Teacher Reboot Camp: edublog with videos and slideshows.
• Colorin Colorado: As part of the Reading Rocket's Professional Development Webcast series, Colorín Colorado offers programs featuring experts who study English language learners (ELLs).
• The Internet TESL Journal:  Free Articles, Research Papers, Lessons Plans, Classroom Handouts, Teaching Ideas & Links. 
• Early Childhood Investigations: Free webinars to early childhood educators.
• Webinar Series via Scholastic: Scholastic's new Webinar series featuring the leading experts in comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, and motivation. 
• Scholastic Professional: Videos and podcasts for professional development. 
• Open Educational Resources: Download professional papers for free.
• Edutopia: Education video library.
• BBC Teacher Development:Publications, Seminars, Webinars, planning your Professional Development, Conferences, and top stories.
• Suite101 Education: Articles in every single topic in education possible.

Spelling Practice Activities

Photo by BookMama

Running out of ideas for practicing spelling words? Tired of "Spelling Bees?" Below is a list of all the activities to practice spelling that I could come up with. The first one is my favorite! Some of these activities can also be done for homework.


Puzzles For at home practice for spelling words, forget the old "write 10 times each." Instead make it fun and so that the students actually have to think about the words. Use PuzzleMaker to make puzzles for the students using the weeks spelling words.
Word Chairs Write one vocabulary word on different papers then write a simple definition of each word on other papers. Take all the papers and tape one paper under each students chair or desk. Tell the students to prepare a numbered paper with the number of vocabulary words that there are. Tell them that it's a contest to see who finds all the words and correct definition first. Spelling counts! The kids will be scrambling around the room to finish first!
Spell Together Create large cards each with a letter of the alphabet on it. Depending on the week's spelling words, have double some double letters if any word uses a letter twice. Remove the letters that aren't being used in that week's spelling words for another week. Give each child a letter and say a spelling word. The children with the right letters have 40 seconds to come to the front of the class and organize themselves in the correct spelling order and to act out the definition.
Heads down, spell right Write all the week's spelling words on the board and ask the students to put their heads down. Erase a word and rewrite it misspelled. The students have to guess which word was spelled wrong when they put their head back up and spell it right.
Mnemonic sentences Have students create a mnemonic sentence. The first letter of each word should be a letter from the spelling word. Ex: Spelling word PHONE could be "Pigs Help One Nice Elf."
Spelling pyramids Make a pyramid of each spelling word in different colors.
Ex.

a

ar

aro

arou

aroun

around

Writing fusion Have students use all the week's spelling words to create a story in groups. They get to  practice the vocabulary, spelling and how to write a good story by helping each other out. Make sure they know that spelling is the most important thing in this task so have them have their word list and dictionaries out.
Superhero words Use all your words to write a letter to a superhero. Spelling counts!
Word rap Make a rap or song using all of the spelling words. Words must be spelled correctly.
Mother May I Have students form a line on one side of the room or playground. They ask "mother may I take __ steps?" Make sure you set a limit on how many steps they can ask for. The more steps they ask for the harder the word they have to spell for you. If they spell it correctly they can take the steps.
Running Dictation Put the spelling words outside the classroom in a different order than you originally gave it to them. Pair students up and have one person in each pair be the writer and the other the runner. The runners have to run outside and look at the word list and run back and repeat to their partner the order of the words. The runner has to keep running back and forth to ensure the writer has the correct spelling and order of the words. The first pair to finish with all the words spelled correctly and in order wins.
Hangman Play hangman with spelling words. Whoever gets it right, leads the next round.
Find the errors Write misspelled words on the word and have the students compete in teams to correct them. Each team takes turns and one of the team members can choose any word on the board to correct. A point is given to the team if the word is correct. If not, leave the word with the students wrong corrections and go to the next team.
How fast can you spell Several teams are created and one student from each team comes up. The teachers says a spelling word and the teams compete to write it correct.
Tic-Tac-Toe The classic game but with words misspelled in each box. Students must take turns to correct a box and if correct they can put their X or O in.